Star Wars is known for using both renowned actors as well as lesser-known up-and-coming stars.
With the addition of Naomi Ackie to the cast, Star Wars Episode 9 added a newbie to its fold.
Who is Richard E Grant in Star Wars?
Fans of superhero movies are likely to recognise Richard E Grant from his role in Logan.
Grant played the mysterious villain Dr Zander Rice in the X-Men origin movie, the leader of a black ops group experimenting on children.
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He also had a brief appearance in Game of Thrones during its sixth season.
He played a theatre actor named Izembaro, whose troupe performed in Braavos where Arya Stark was training to be an assassin with the Faceless Men.
But these two mega-famous franchises aren’t Grant’s only credits.
Grant’s first film role was the perpetually inebriated title character in Withnail and I, which has gained a large cult following.
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Over the past two decades, Grant has had major supporting roles movies like Henry & June, L.A. Story, The Player, The Age of Innocence, The Portrait of a Lady, Spice World, Gosford Park, Bright Young Things, and Penelope.
His achievements aren’t limited to fiction however and with the help of BBC Newsnight, he exposed a $98 million scam to sell a bogus AIDS cure in December 2006.
Born in Mbabane, Swaziland, Grant has said: “I grew up in Swaziland when it was mired in a 1960s sensibility.”
“The kind of English spoken where I grew up was a period English sound and when I came to England people said, ‘how strange’. Charles Sturridge, who directed Brideshead Revisited for TV, said, ‘you speak English like someone from the 1950s’,” he told Sydney Morning Herald in 2008.
Who will Richard E Grant play in Star Wars Episode IX?
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The likelihood of finding out who he will play in Episode 9 is far off.
Lucasfilm has a very reticent take on betraying information of their upcoming movies.
To keep secrets of Episode IX under wraps, the production team is using old technology to prevent tampering and leaks.
Star Wars Episode IX is in cinemas Thursday, December 19 2019.