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While Richard E. Grant has been a reliable presence in British movies for years, after popping up in Game of Thrones and Logan the veteran character is looking more and more like a tentpole genre staple. Next year Grant will appear in Star Wars: Episode IX and a new podcast interview hints at the nature of his role.
Grant's casting immediately produced rumors that the next Star Wars would introduce Grand Admiral Thrawn into the live-action movie series. With Grant's slim frame and imperious cheekbones, all it would take is a splash of blue to turn him into the Grand Admiral, first introduced in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire. Thrawn has since been reintroduced into the new Disney canon in Star Wars Rebels.
While Grant has denied playing Thrawn, his actual role doesn't sound far off. Speaking with podcast Happy Sad Confused (transcribed by Star Wars News Net), Grant walked listeners through the audition process.
"I got sent a 10-page generic sort of, I think it was an interrogation scene, clearly from a 1940s British B picture, because the references were not Star Wars, and the language was something that my grandfather would have spoken," Grant said. "So I did that and sent it off, and it goes into cyberspace, and you don't even think about it again."
Is there anything that sounds more like the Star Wars Empire than a British, WWII-era interrogation? This comes close to confirming what it was easy to assume, pretty much just by looking at Richard E. Grant: He'll be playing a First Order officer, maybe in a role similar to Mark Lewis Jones's Captain Canady, blown to bits at the beginning of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
But more interesting than the audition is who was in the room when Grant was officially cast. In addition to casting director Nina Gold and director J.J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley was also in attendance. This might indicate Grant's character will be more substantial than Canady and a crucial part of Rey's arc in this final entry in the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Star Wars: Episode IX is due out in theaters Dec. 20, 2019.
