Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy confirmed in a new interview that the Star Wars franchise will no longer cast new actors in the role of classic characters. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Kennedy was one of many involved with the franchise giving an overview about the avalanche of Star Wars content just over the horizon and beyond.
“There should be moments along the way when you learn things,” said Kennedy, reflecting directly on the re-casting in Solo: A Star Wars Story, which put actors Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover in the roles of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo and Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian respectively. “Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.”
On the other hand, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is about to get his own series on May 27, was recast for the prequels–Alec Guinness was replaced by Ewan McGregor.
As franchise devotees will no doubt remember at reading Kennedy’s quote above, however, audiences responded favorably to those actors–and were more underwhelmed by other aspects of that troubled film. However, according to this new article, it sounds like the door is still firmly open for further technical ambitions in deep fakes, a la Mark Hamill at 70 delivering performances as a 30-something Luke Skywalker in recent seasons of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
And although that door is open and the option remains available, many creatives involved in Star Wars say they’re much more interested in exploring other timelines within the galaxy far, far away. The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll), for example, told Vanity Fair that her series takes place a century before The Phantom Menace and is more interested in “the political and personal and spiritual things that came up in a time period that we don’t know much about.”
The profile is worth a read in its own right, if only to learn more about Spider-Man director Jon Watts’ new Star Wars TV series.
