Matt Smith is about to trade Time Lords for Sith Lords.
While the details are sparse, Variety reports that the former Doctor has landed what is being called a “key role” in Star Wars: Episode IX – crossing the geek streams of two of sci-fi’s biggest and most influential worlds.
The nature of Smith’s role remains uncertain, so he could either be a member of the Resistance or part of the First Order, the latter of which underwent an extreme regime change in the culminating events of last year’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Did his recent turn as Prince Philip (and his plummy English accent) convince JJ Abrams that he might make a good villian alongside Domhnall Gleeson? Is his past pluck as the Doctor enough to make him a witty Resistance leader instead? Or is everyone wrong and he’s actually playing a CG alien in a mo-cap suit?
Regardless, he’ll join fellow franchise newcomers like Naomi Ackie, Kerri Russell and Richard E. Grant, as well as Billy Dee Williams, who reprises his original trilogy role as Lando Calrissian.
Smith is coming off an acclaimed television run on Netflix’s The Crown as Prince Philip, for which he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He recently appeared in the horror, Patient Zero and played photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the biopic.
Star Wars: Episode IX is set to arrive at theaters on December 20, 2019.