After Star Wars: The Force Awakens killed off Han Solo, The Last Jedi gave our inner child another slap to the face when Luke Skywalker died at the end of the movie, vanishing into the Force after protecting his friends from the First Order’s attack. Unlike Han’s death, though, this scene did potentially allow for some ambiguity when it comes to Luke’s fate.
Truthfully, we suspect there’s a good chance the character could return in some form in Episode IX. Potentially in a flashback to his training of Kylo Ren at the Jedi Academy but most likely as a Force ghost. After all, TLJ director Rian Johnson has already explained that he thought his decision opened up “more possibilities” for what his successor J.J. Abrams could do with Luke in the next movie.
But what about possibly bringing back the character in an Anthology film? One that explores his younger days, stuff we may not have seen in the Original Trilogy? There’s been no talk of anything like that happening, but if it were to come to fruition, Mark Hamill has just the actor in mind for who could play the role.
Speaking to Variety in conjunction with his Hollywood Walk of Fame honor on Thursday, Hamill revealed that he’d love to see Room star Jacob Tremblay bring a young Luke to life should the opportunity arise.
“It depends on what point in Luke’s life that you would have him be in the movie. Because at first I’m thinking … the whole point of Luke was that he was bored silly with his life. All he was doing was bullseyeing wamp rats in his T-16.
Now, if they could do now where they have five or six plots and you’re cutting around what’s going on all around him and they keep cutting back to a really young Luke, I thought, ‘The one I love is Jacob Tremblay.’”
Tremblay is certainly a solid pick. Ever since his breakout in the aforementioned Room, he’s been one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors. Not to mention he’s a tremendously talented individual and his star is only growing bigger and bigger with each role he takes on.
At only 11 years of age though, he’s probably still a bit too young to play a teenage or young adult Luke, but then again, if Lucasfilm were to ever make an Anthology film centering around the character, it probably wouldn’t be for several years. So really, Tremblay could potentially be old enough or be made to look old enough by the time something like this got off the ground.
Staying in the here and now, though, up next for the Star Wars franchise is Solo: A Star Wars Story, which arrives on May 25th.
