Star Wars: Starfighter Finds Its Villain (And the Actor Has a Weird History With the Franchise)

Matt Smith is making the jump to hyperspace. The Doctor Who and House of the Dragon star has been cast in a villain role in Star Wars: Starfighter, joining Project Hail Mary‘s Ryan Gosling and Pearl‘s Mia Goth in the galaxy far, far away. According to Deadline, which first reported the news, Smith won out over “a number of actors” who met with director Shawn Levy for the key role, but details about the character are under wraps.

Interestingly, the actor was reported to have a “key role” in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which never materialized. It was rumored that Smith — who previously played villains in 2015’s Terminator Genisys and 2022’s Morbius — might’ve portrayed a cloned Emperor Palpatine in director J.J. Abrams’ finale to the nine-episode Star Wars saga.

“We were close to me being in [Rise of Skywalker], but then it just never quite happened,” Smith said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2021. “I think the thing they were thinking of me for, eventually, the part became obsolete and they didn’t need it. And so I never got to be in Star Wars.”

Asked about whether his secret role was Palpatine’s cloned “son” Dathan, revealed to be the father of Daisy Ridley’s Jedi Rey, Smith teased, “I could not possibly say, but it was a pretty groovy thing. It was a really groovy part and concept.”

“It was a big thing, it was a big story detail. Like, a transformative Star Wars story detail,” he continued, “but it never quite got over the line.”

It’s unclear whether Smith’s role in Starfighter is a carryover from The Rise of Skywalker, but director Shawn Levy has described his film as “a stand-alone” set approximately five years after Episode IX.

“It’s not a prequel, not a sequel. It’s a new adventure,” Levy said at Star Wars Celebration in April. He added Starfighter is “set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet,” referring to what Lucasfilm has officially dubbed the New Jedi Order era.

It was previously reported that Goth is also playing a villain, as one of the “evil pursuers” after the young charge under the protection of Gosling’s character.

Disney has slated its first Star Wars film since The Rise of Skywalker — the Jon Favreau-directed The Mandalorian and Grogu — for May 22, 2026, with Starfighter following a year later on May 28, 2027.

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