Billy Dee Williams May Be Back For More Star Wars, Here’s How
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Though he recently reprised his iconic Lando Calirssian role on Star Wars Rebels, we won’t be seeing Billy Dee Williams in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He has said that he “has a feeling” he’ll be back on the big screen before long, and it’s looking more and more like Lando’s trademark smile and swagger will indeed make an appearance.
The British tabloid The Sun, so, right there you’ll want to take this report with a grain of salt, claims that Williams has been told that he’ll have “a fun cameo” cameo in Star Wars: Episode VIII, and their source said the 77-year-old actor is “definitely up for it.”
Looper director Rian Johnson is writing and directing Episode VIII and, of course, we don’t know a damn thing about it right now. At this stage, we don’t even know much about The Force Awakens except that, according to J.J. Abrams, some of the rumors floating around are actually true. I’m sure we won’t know which handful out of the dozens are real until the movie opens December 18, but it’s been fun to speculate about so far.
We might get into some potential spoilers beyond this point.
Whatever this role turns out to be—lets presume this is real for the time being—it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be anything too substantial. We’ve heard that Han dies in The Force Awakens—something Harrison Ford has wanted to happen since Return of the Jedi—so maybe he shows up to pay respects to his fallen friend. Though I don’t know that I would call that fun (maybe he hits on Leia, that could be fun). Daisy Ridley’s character, Rey, is, according to some reports, Han and Leia’s daughter, so it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that he could show up in some capacity that helps her along in whatever journey she’s on.
If nothing else, this will hopefully satisfy those fans out there who were disappointed that Williams doesn’t show up in The Force Awakens, and who had their appetite for more Lando piqued with that recent episode of Rebels. Star Wars: Episode VIII, whatever it winds up being called, is scheduled to arrive in theaters in December 2017.
