In an interview with with Andy Riesmeyer on Ora.Tv’s Dweebcast, Dominic Monaghan reveals a little of what J.J. Abrams told him about casting Episode VII:
“We’ve talked a few times about it and he just said, ‘look, we’re putting together a cast of essentially unknowns, you know. We want to follow the kind of ’77, [A] New Hope type cast…. We don’t want to fall into that mistake of People going ‘Oh, it’s that guy from the thing!'”
Not a big surprise or a big reveal, but at this point, every little bit helps. (via)