The character that Forest Whitaker will play in the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has been revealed. The news hit as part of Entertainment Weekly’s cover story which hit yesterday, which finally revealed officially that Darth Vader would be present in the Gareth Edwards directed movie after all.
According to EW, Whitaker will be playing the character of Saw Gerrera in the spin-off – seen in the trailer saying “If you continue to fight, what will you become?” Gerrera was actually first seen in season 5 of The Clone Wars animated series (see below).
According to EW, Gerrera, along with his ‘with his sister, Steela, he fought alongside Darth Vader — back when the Sith lord was just an impetuous young Jedi named Anakin Skywalker. In the episode A War on Two Fronts, which aired in October 2012, Saw and Steela were part of an insurgent group being unofficially trained by Anakin, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the padawan Ahsoka Tano.’
“Consider him kind of a battered veteran who leads a band of Rebel extremists,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy tells EW. “He’s on the fringe of the Rebel Alliance. Even [they] are a little concerned about him.”
Whitaker is pictured as the character at the top of the page.
Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk and Jonathan Aris also star in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which hits cinemas on December 17th.
