Star Wars: Rebels Star Freddie Prinze Jr. Explains Rise of Skywalker Cameo

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker included multiple cameos, like Freddie Prinze Jr’s Kanan Jarrus offering Rey wisdom near the tail end of the movie. The Star Wars Rebels actor talked about how he got brought in for that process in a new interview. ScreenRant asked about that awesome Jedi cameo in the last Star Wars movie from the Skywalker saga. Originally, Prinze Jr. wasn’t going to participate, but a couple well placed phone calls finally got him to consider coming back for a small voice role. Star Wars Rebels, nostalgia is at an all time high, and with that re-estimation of the animated series comes the expectation of more from all of the actors involved. It does’t sound like we are getting Kanan anytime soon, but you never know.

Prinze Jr. began, “I feel like every time Kanan gets put out there, since the cartoon, it dilutes the character a little bit. I wasn’t even crazy about doing the voiceover in the last movie, and it took a couple of phone calls to convince me to do so. I didn’t think Kanan was that powerful to be a Force ghost that would communicate from the past.”

“So, no, my answer is no. I wouldn’t do Star Wars, and I wouldn’t want to play a different character. I don’t like that,” he clarified. “I don’t like it when other actors do it either. I don’t want you playing two superheroes; play one. It’s weird otherwise, right? Not that you can’t do it if you’re capable of doing it. I just want to see you as this guy or that guy. I wouldn’t want to play a different one.

Would We Ever See Kanan In Live-Action?

A lot of fans have been wanting Rebels characters to show-up in live-action. That’s already started with Star Wars Ahsoka and The Mandalorian. But, people are curious what the crew of Hera and Kanan’s ship were doing before they ran into Ezra Bridger and all his pals. If that ever gets made into a TV show or movie it won’t involve Prinze Jr. He talked to ComicBook about a possible Star Wars return and said that it basically wouldn’t happen at this point. 

“Kanan’s story – at least for me – is done, I thought it ended beautifully. People cried, I was very happy for that,” the star told us. “I don’t mean that like a jerk: our goal was to make you cry. I didn’t even want to do the little voice over in the last Star Wars movie [The Rise of Skywalker]. I thought it felt forced.”

“To me, every time I’m asked to do Kanan it waters down what was a beautiful ending… It’s this amazing powerful moment,” Prinze reflected. “So for me, that story’s been told, and it’s done, and I wouldn’t have any interest in that. And it would be weird to play a different character in that universe, so I don’t have any ambition to be in the Star Wars Universe.”

Did you like all those Jedi showing up in The Rise of Skywalker? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!