Lucasfilm representatives have confirmed to to Big Shiny Robot and TheForce.Net that this morning’s casting breakdown posted by Bleeding Cool is for real, and that casting for Episode VII has indeed begun.
Here are the listings, and no, I’m not going to guess at who these characters may be, as I deeply doubt they’ll end up being anyone we recognize, from the EU or otherwise:
Late-teen female, independent, good sense of humour, fit.
Young twenty-something male, witty and smart, fit but not traditionally good looking.
A late twentysomething male, fit, handsome and confident.
Seventy-something male, with strong opinions and tough demeanour. Also doesn’t need to be particularly fit.
A second young female, also late teens, tough, smart and fit.
Forty something male, fit, military type.
Thirtysomething male, intellectual. Apparently doesn’t need to be fit.
I’m not going to apologize for doubting this one earlier: With all the crud we’ve been getting – and much more yet to come – someone has to!
Still not buying it, but at least it looks more realistic than the previous outing.
I’m skeptical, but breakdownservices.com is a legit site used by the industry. I wonder what they used for a title of the film, because I highly doubt they used “Star Wars.”
Deadline and Bleeding Cool both seem to think it is real.
They’re welcome to think so, but everyone is still pretty much just writing off the BC report.
No idea on the veracity of this, but I love the Ancient Aliens guy in the graphic.
Heavy on the young people, which would be good, as far as I’m concerned. Also lulzing at the “apparently doesn’t need to be fit.” What’s that about?
Taking this with a serious grain of salt.
Everything on these types of matters falls into offensively off or lets get contemplative and see.
The first thing I made sure of was they weren’t using another TV/film as a model for the casting. They easily could have taken Firefly and written a casting call for it and pretended it was Star Wars.
If this isn’t the call, and they did not go out to casting agents like Deadline claims, it has to happen soon. If they should start filming in January, that doesn’t give the cast much time to prepare or make the arrangements for filming, especially if they should use young people that are still in school.
If this is real, they would need time to see all the applicants and then make their choices. There really isn’t that much time left.
That’s pretty much the only reason I’m giving this a serious “maybe” at this point. But then again, there is always the chance they could do all the casting internally. But that would probably make it harder to find the right unknows with that look they want for each character.
As always, it is good fun.
Eric Geller just confirmed it is real.
No disrespect to Eric, but until there’s a statement or press release from Disney or Lucasfilm proper, I’m not sure it’s right to say this is confirmed. More probable, perhaps, but not confirmed.
Honestly, the list is kind of vague enough to mean anything. I mean, does this list only cover leads? What’s a lead character? Was Captain Panaka a lead in TPM? Still way too many questions before we can even begin speculating.
If I remember correctly, for Episode I, they cast the main four, Liam Nesson, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, and Jake Lloyd. Then we got a few rounds of announcements later on that were for Huge Quarshie, Terrance Stamp, Silas Carson, Celia Imrie, Brian Blessed, and the likes all hit later.
But I’m not sure any of that is applicable today because different people are handling things now.
I doubt this new movie will be the costume drama Episode I was, but they probably need to figure things out sooner than later because they will have to make costumes for the main cast. I have imagine casting Amidala was essential in order to get all that garb done.
I doubt we’ll get a press release on this, but word from two LFL reps is enough even for me.
Honestly, I doubt we’ll get any sort of big fluffy casting release until they actually sign some folks – and chances are we’ll hear about that long before the ink is dry, just as we already know that Hamill, Fisher and Ford are in talks.
Jason: I expect the Big 3 and any other returning vets will be first, then anyone else they’re already talking to (like maybe Rhys-Meyers?) and then the first couple out of this batch. But who knows?
After talking with a friend about this a bit ago, some more thoughts to chew on.
It’s likely that, while these might be lead characters, they’ll be cast with unknowns, much like the original film.
I feel like Episode I was a bit of an exception because the four actors that Jason mentioned above were all well-to-slightly-well known entities (Liam and Natalie as the well-knowns; Ewan and Jake being the slightly-well-known newcomers).
My guess is that in the case of Episode VII, the known entities will be Hamill, Fisher, and Ford, and the rest of the cast will be unknown or lesser known.
I just posted a very similar thing on CJ’s Facebook page with that discussion. If they announce their casting call, they will simply get messages from fans thinking it was an invitation to audition, which it clearly isn’t. I think we’ll hear about this in an Abrams’ interview where they ask what is up with Star Wars or a StarWars.com article that mentions it in passing.
My guess has always been that the Big Three or Big Four for that matter, will happen separate from the announcement of the new cast to not overshadow them.
As we all know, Lucasfilm makes movies so intermittently, their methods adapt and change drastically over time. Bad Robot’s previous methods with Star Trek might be worth looking into or other Abrams’ projects.
I kind of hope we get standalone announcements or paired announcements like Dunc mentioned. I like my daily Episode VII fixes as often as I can get them.
I’m Jason Ward and I’m a Star Wars addict.
Don’t waste your typing on Facebook. ;)
And yeah, fan ‘actors’ not going through the proper channels are almost certainly a factor. I mean hell, I’m not looking forward to that crap, and we’re just a fan blog so we won’t get that much, but I remember how annoying those folks were back in the prequel days.
One thing I saw the other day on Tumblr – not sure from where – is that Benedict Cumberbatch signed onto Star Trek Into Darkness not even knowing what role he was going to play, which is… Yeah. If that’s true, I suspect similar actions will be taken for EpVII.
Want to know who is going to be in Episode VII? Greg Grunberg. He’s in every Abrams’ movie in some way. Abrams calls him his “good luck charm.”
But I agree, how many stupid stories do we have to read every week like “Larry David Wants Alec Guiness Type Role in New Star Wars Reboot.” Actors want to be in Star Wars and most will take anything they can get for that association and there are probably a bunch more that would do anything to work with Abrams.
I just really deeply want unknowns for the main roles. Bring back the old cats. Cast some British actors in the rest of the roles and I’m happy as hell.
@ Dunc, If I remember correctly, Cumberbatch knew he was going to play a villain, but not the exact name of said villain (which I won’t mention here for fear of spoilers, but the identity of said villain is important)
Captain Panaka is still a lead… in my heart.
So they’re all fit, except for the intelectual.