Star Wars: Episode VII Casts The Parkour Practicing Christina Chong

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

Christina ChangWhen the initial casting announcement came out for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII, there was an initial backlash because it was pretty much all dudes. Aside from returning star Carrie Fisher, the only other woman was newcomer Daisy Ridley. Since that announcement at the end of April, however, Disney and Lucasfilm have increased the female contingent, and today they’ve added another in the person of the relatively unknown Christina Chong.

Latino-Review reports that the young actress has joined the shoot, which is already underway at Pinewood Studios in London, England. Though she has appeared in movies like Johnny English Reborn and shows like Doctor Who, but has most recently been seen in Jack Bauer’s latest adventures in 24: Live Another Day.

While there is no word on what role Chong will be playing—she has dark hair, maybe she’ll be Han and Leia’s daughter—but it may be a pretty safe bet that it will involve a great deal of action. She’s known as quite the practitioner of parkour, which you may or may not know involves lots of running, jumping, climbing, and throwing yourself off of really tall objects. There is also a lot of flipping and acrobatics involved. Check out Chong’s stunt reel below:

Last month, Episode VII cast another parkour artist, and another unknown, Pip Andersen, who the production found through an extensive casting call. If you’re imagining a scene where these two are running around, bouncing off of walls, hurling themselves off of buildings and down elevator shafts, that’s seeming more and more likely. Maybe they’ll be allies on the run together, but there’s also the chance that they one could be chasing the other. They both certainly have the necessary skill set for it.

Chong joins a cast the includes returning franchise veterans like Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker. She’s one of the new faces that include Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Max Von Sydow, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, and Crystal Clarke. And maybe Carrie Fisher’s daughter.

Episode VII began filming on location in Abu Dhabi in May, before wrapping and moving the whole show to London, where they managed to horribly maim Harrison Ford. Okay, it wasn’t a horrible maiming, but he did reportedly break his leg, which will cause delays in production, though reportedly will not delay the actual release of the film, which is still scheduled for December 18, 2015.