“House of the Dragon” Star Matt Smith Lands Villain Role Opposite Ryan Gosling in “Star Wars: Starfighter”
Matt Smith is going from Westeros to a galaxy far, far away.
The House of the Dragon star is joining Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter in a villain role. He’ll be sparring with Ryan Gosling, the film’s star, and Mia Goth, whose casting was announced this past June. Smith isn’t exactly new to the Star Wars franchise, however—he was considered to appear in J.J. Abrams’ 2019 trilogy capper Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. While Smith didn’t get to make his Star Wars debut there, one imagines he’ll have an even meatier role here in Levy’s stand-alone film.
Smith’s villain will be one of several, The Hollywood Reporter scoops, with casting now moving into high gear. The details on the film’s plot are still being kept in carbonite, but the initial news about the project first broke at the Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo this past April, and along with it, some key details. Starfighter is set five years after the events in Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, which had been billed, at the time, as the end of the Skywalker Saga that first began with George Lucas’s 1977 Star Wars IV: A New Hope, although a new Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley is in the works. Star Wars: Starfighter has set a May 28, 2027, release date.
“There are many rumors, some true, some not. This is not a prequel. This is not a sequel. It’s a new adventure,” Gosling said at the Tokyo event. “It was a great process. This is no longer a Star Wars movie in development. This is a Star Wars movie we’re making this fall! This script is so good. It’s filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”
Smith has been one of the marquee stars in Ryan Condal’s Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon. He’ll next appear in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, starring opposite Austin Butler, as well as the limited series The Death of Bunny Munro.
“Being here and seeing all of you [makes it] more inspiring to do it,” Gosling said during the Star Wars Celebration. “There’s so much creativity and imagination in this room, and there’s so much love. It’s such a great reminder of how much movies can mean to us, specifically how much these movies mean to us. The force is a mysterious thing, but, as I’m here, the force is the fans. All we can hope for is, ‘May the fans be with us.’”
Gosling and Smith have a potent third cast member among them in Mia Goth, who has two massive movies on the horizon–she’ll next be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, playing Victor Frankenstein’s (Oscar Isaac) fiancé, Elisabeth, and after that, she’ll appear in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in an undisclosed role.
Featured image: Matt Smith in “House of the Dragon.” Courtesy HBO.
