Matt Smith cast as Star Wars villain in Starfighter opposite Ryan Gosling
After two seasons as Prince Philip on The Crown and a run as the devilish Daemon Targaryen on House of the Dragon, Matt Smith certainly has his sneer down pat.
That should be useful in his next gig. Smith has been cast as a villain in the upcoming Star Wars movie Starfighter, according to Deadline.
The character is not yet confirmed, but it is expected to be more Dark Side than not.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Smith had previously been approached to play a role in The Rise of Skywalker, but the character disappeared before production.
Starfighter is the Ryan Gosling-led Star Wars entry that Deadpool helmer Shawn Ryan is directing. It is slated to be a standalone story separate from the core three trilogies, and set five years after The Rise of Skywalker. It will also star Mia Goth.
Levy said during the Star Wars Celebration in April, “(It’s) not a prequel, not a sequel, it’s a new adventure, it’s set in a period of time we haven’t explored yet”. It will be released in May 2027.
Starfighter is one of the few mooted Star Wars movies that actually seems to be happening after a series of aborted in-development projects involving high-profile filmmakers including James Mangold, Patty Jenkins, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, and Kevin Feige.
A Star Wars movie from Taika Waititi was announced in 2020 but is now on indefinite hold.
The franchise has been prolific on the streaming side but since the release of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, the cinema unit only has successfully proceeded on one film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, a big-screen continuation of the Disney+ series.
That film, starring Pedro Pascal, is currently in post-production and will be released in May 2026.
Smith’s big break came in 2010 when he was cast as the lead in Doctor Who for its fifth, sixth and seventh seasons. He has since also appeared in films Terminator Genisys, Last Night in Soho and the upcoming Darren Aronofsky caper, Caught Stealing.
He played a vampiric villain in the Spider-Man-adjacent movie, Morbius, but probably all involved would rather forget that existed at all.
