Matt Smith Joins Cast of ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
Matt Smith is officially joining the Star Wars galaxy, this time for real. According to Deadline, the Doctor Who star has been cast as the main villain in Star Wars: Starfighter, the upcoming film from director Shawn Levy. He’ll star alongside Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth.
This isn’t Smith’s first brush with the franchise. Back when The Rise of Skywalker was in development, he was attached to a mystery role. However, that never came to be. “We were close to being in it, but it never quite happened,” Smith told the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2021.
Remember those reports that Matt Smith was going to be in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER? He told me his role was a big deal, representing “a big shift in the history of the [STAR WARS] franchise.”
— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) November 3, 2021
WHO WAS HE GOING TO PLAY?!
Full video chat at https://t.co/e84WokCDhq pic.twitter.com/JGKiwPSba9
He hinted that it was supposed to be a major part of the story but wouldn’t reveal details. “It was a really groovy part and concept. It was a big thing, a big story detail. A transformative Star Wars story detail. But it never quite got over the line.”
This time, Smith’s role is locked in. He’ll be playing the central antagonist in Starfighter, which is set about five years after The Rise of Skywalker. The film will focus on entirely new characters in the Star Wars universe, breaking away from the Skywalker saga.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy confirmed the timeline earlier this year, adding that the movie will arrive after The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Starfighter has been in the works since late 2022, when Shawn Levy was first linked to the project following his work on Deadpool & Wolverine and Stranger Things. Development slowed during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, but picked up again in 2024 when Jonathan Tropper, who wrote The Adam Project, came on board to write the script.
In early 2025, Ryan Gosling entered talks to star, which fast-tracked the project. By February, Kennedy had confirmed the film’s place in the Star Wars lineup, and in August, news broke that Smith had officially joined as the villain.
Production on Starfighter is set to begin this fall, with a release date of May 28, 2027. The film is expected to be a major tentpole for Lucasfilm, serving as one of the first big-screen Star Wars adventures since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker.
With Gosling, Goth, and now Smith in the mix, Starfighter is shaping up to be one of the most exciting Star Wars projects in years.
First reported by Deadline.
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