Everybody and their mother has been rumored to play a part in Star Wars: Episode VII—like Saoirse Ronan said, pretty much everyone has auditioned—but I’m inclined to be a little less skeptical of this new rumor than usual. The reason? The actress in question is an unknown.
If this rumor is true, the actress who we’ll all be freaking out over soon enough is Maisie Richardson-Sellers, a British student at Oxford university who’s done several stage plays and just about nothing else. The Hollywood Reporter‘s anonymous sources say Richardson-Sellers “is in line to nab an undisclosed and possibly major role,” potentially “that of a young black or mixed-race woman who may be a descendent of Jedi Knight Ben Kenobi.” Her casting would certainly mesh with what we’ve heard before, namely that J.J. Abrams wants to go the unknown actor route like George Lucas did with the original trilogy. And with filming already begun and a lot of the cast already in place (this according to Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn), I wouldn’t be surprised if we started getting confirmation of some of those unknowns relatively soon(ish).
I’m trying not to get my hopes up about the sequel trilogy casting a woman of color in a major role, but it’s hard. I must force myself to stop thinking about this “news”—which is of course only speculation at this point—in favor of telling you about something that’s definitely happening: The return of legendary sci-fi comedy show Red Dwarf.
It was announced at a Red Dwarf panel at the Sci-Fi Scarborough convention that co-creator Doug Naylor is writing an 11th season of his cult classic series about a group of space misfits stranded three million years in the future. Red Dwarf debuted in the ’80s, ran for 10 years, and has since come back out of hiatus twice, the second time in 2012 with Red Dwarf X. This new season will shoot in October for a possible debut next fall.
Smegging wonderful news!
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