Star Wars: Episode VII Is Looking For Weird Looking Extras And Salty Sea Dogs
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If you’re weird looking, and a Star Wars fan, today might be your lucky day. That is, assuming you live in or near London. The big Episode VII casting news came out last week, and while we expect to hear more eventually, including one more potential significant female role, the production is also looking for extras to fill out the ranks of unusual creatures that populate the universe George Lucas created.
Over the first six installments, the Star Wars saga has played out over dozens of worlds, all with their own unique set of inhabitants. This, obviously, necessitates a wide array of interesting—a word that comes up quite often in this notice from Movie Casting Call—faces to populate the background. Basically, what it sounds like they’re looking for are faces that leave a lingering impression.
Here’s a quick overall glimpse at what they’re looking for:
Males and Females, any age over 16. Interesting looks. Character faces, memorable eye-catching looks, unusual type looks. This could be people with strong physical features, facial scars, big beards, long hair, bad teeth, large facial features, dreadlocks, or interesting ethnic appearance such as darker skin and light eyes.
This is a broad spectrum, but the announcement does get more specific. Episode VII is also after younger men and women, in the 16 to 22 year old range, crossing all ethnic backgrounds, types, and body shapes. Filming for these parts are scheduled to go down between May and September of this years, and considering that their presence will likely be needed for the bulk of shoot, this gives you a rough idea of the filming schedule.
The final addition to what is already an interesting list is far and away my favorite one. It reads: “SAILORS/FISHERMEN/NAVY TYPES: ‘Salty Sea Dogs Wanted.’”
A fair amount of Star Wars goes down in seedy places, like the cantina from A New Hope, where grim, grizzled space frontier types congregate. While this may sound like a casting call for a new installment of Jaws (dear sweet baby Jesus, please don’t get any ideas, Hollywood), maybe it means that the cast of characters, whoever they may be, will make their way to some kind of ocean planet. After all, if there are desert wastelands like Tatooine, it stands to reason that there could be waterlogged worlds as well.
Though we finally know who will fill out the bulk of the key roles, we don’t know much about who they are, or what the story entails. All we really know is that Episode VII takes place 30-plus years after the events of Return of the Jedi. We can assume that the characters we already know—Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, C-3PO, and R2-D2—will be similar to their previous incarnations. Sure, they’re older, a little more wrinkled and withered, and probably have those random twinges and aches that come with age, but odds are they won’t have changed into something entirely unrecognizable.
Star Wars: Episode VII opens everywhere December 18, 2015.
