A site called GeekNation claims they’ve heard through the ever nebulous “sources” that Rian Johnson and company are looking for an actress to play a “strong, young female character” who will be “featured heavily” in Episode VIII.
Where I start to side-eye things is who the sources say this character specifically is, but that’s spoiler territory (including some fairly mild speculation on The Force Awakens,) so I’ll steer clear.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard that Episode VIII may feature another leading woman; Making Star Wars had something back in June, though the specifics were quite different. (Or were they?)
But as much as I hope for continued variety of Star Wars ladies in this new trilogy, I’ve never heard of this GeekNation site before and can’t vouch for their reporting at all. The salt cellar is close at hand.