Ryan Gosling officially confirms Star Wars role at fan event in Japan
Ryan Gosling officially confirmed his starring role in Shawn Levy’s Star Wars movie at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, Japan on Friday.
The Barbie actor, who was first attached to the film in January, appeared on stage at the biennial Star Wars convention alongside Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, chief creative officer Dave Filoni and his director Levy.
Together, they collectively announced that the movie would be called Star Wars: Starfighter and be released on 28 May 2027.
Gosling proved his Star Wars fan credentials to the crowd by showing a picture of his childhood The Empire Strikes Back bedsheets, sent in by his mother.
“She still has them, obviously,” Gosling quipped, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Naturally, she thought that it might be something that the fans would appreciate, but I suspect that she just sort of wants to justify years of hoarding.”
Speaking more sincerely, he added, “As you can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about Star Wars before I even saw the film. And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was.”
The La La Land actor teased the film, telling the audience that it’s “a great story” with original characters and filled with “so much heart and adventure”.
“There just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn,” he said of the Deadpool & Wolverine director.
Addressing the fans directly, Gosling continued, “Being here and seeing all of you (makes it) more inspiring to do it. There’s so much creativity and imagination in this room and there’s so much love. It’s such a great reminder of how much movies can mean to us, specifically how much these movies mean to us.”
Star Wars: Starfighter will be set around five years after the events of 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker and be a standalone story with new characters.
It will be released around a year after the next Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu, which comes to cinemas in May 2026.
