Star Wars: Episode VIII is on the hunt for two new female protagonists.
It was already known that the film had narrowed down a casting search to three actresses (all stars on buzzworthy TV shows), vying for one new female role. But now there's a new report that there are actually two new roles for which the same actresses are being considered, and that there are in fact four actresses being considered, not three.
The actresses are Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin). Latino Review adds British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw to that list. Mbatha-Raw starred on NBC's short-lived J.J. Abrams spy series Undercovers, but has since broken out in the film world, thanks largely to her starring role in Belle.
So who are these two new women being added to the story? The reports refer to them repeatedly as "protagonists," suggesting a Lando Calrissian-type situation in which new heroes are added to the cast in the second act. Then again, one or both of these could be replacement protagonists, should any of the main characters of The Force Awakens not survive the film.
Whoever is cast, it's believed that she'll be joining Benicio del Toro as a new villain, and of course returning characters from The Force Awakens.
The 2017 film, directed by Rian Johnson, will form part two of the new trilogy commissioned by Disney. Part One is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams and due December 18, 2015. The second and third parts will come after two-year intervals.
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