Star Wars Episode IX: Two more actors are starting to film

More than just the main cast of Star Wars: Episode IX has started working on production in the UK, but what could this mean for their roles?

Star Wars: Episode IX has already called in Oscar Isaac and John Boyega — that we know of — to start work for main characters like Poe Dameron and Finn. However, the cast of a film is more than just principal characters.

So, with the news from Deadline (with an H/T to Star Wars News Net) and r/StarWarsLeaks (citing our own sister site, Dork Side of the Force) that both Keri Russell and Greg Grunberg have or will be filming in the near future, it’s time to speculate on what they could be doing.

Let’s start with Grunberg, who plays Snap Wexley, a pilot in the Resistance. As the subreddit has it, he said that he would be in the UK to film starting next week. He didn’t have a particularly large role in The Force Awakens, and he didn’t appear in The Last Jedi at all. However, his coming back suggests that there could be even larger space battles in Episode IX  requiring as many pilots as the Resistance can muster.

As for Russell, the Deadline article states that “she will be working on and off in for the next few months” for Star Wars. Although that’s not the most specific timeframe, it does indicate that she could have a fairly significant role that requires her to be on set for at least a few months of production. Going off the assumption that a “few months” means she’ll be done in January at the very latest, she’ll have been there for a significant portion of production, as reports have it that principal photography will wrap sometime in February of 2019.

Fans on r/StarWarsLeaks suspect that the current lack of overlap means that Russell’s role won’t see her character connected to the Resistance. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Schedules are tricky things to work with, and we don’t know how long Grunberg will be in town to work on the movie. One user on the subreddit speculated that she could be playing a Jedi, and it seems obvious to also throw the possibility out there that she’s Rey’s mother as well. Hey, there are those persistent rumors about Mara Jade…

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