12 Star Wars Actors Who Were Wasted in Their Roles

A new Star Wars television series like Andor brings with it a whole new cast of wonderful actors joining the most popular sci-fi franchise in history. In the case of this Disney+ show, actors like Stellan Skarsgard, Fiona Show, Adria Arjona, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach will all be seen opposite series lead Diego Luna, once again playing Rebel hero Cassian Andor.

Andor also features the return of several familiar faces, including Genevieve O’Reilly who previously played Rebel leader Mon Mothma in several prior films, and Forest Whitaker, whose insurgent leader Saw Gerrera appeared in 2016’s Rogue One. It’s particularly exciting to hear Whitaker will be reprising his role, because his part in Rogue One was so small. While the Saw Gerrera character also shows up from time to time in Star Wars animated series, Whitaker’s live-action performance amounted to a handful of brief scenes in one film. It felt like a great actor had been wasted in a thankless role.

Sadly, that’s not that uncommon in Star Wars, especially lately. As the franchise has expanded under Disney’s control, it’s begun stunt casting more and more top stars in cameo roles — as well as reworking some movies so heavily during production that characters intended to play significant parts in stories when they were cast with A-list talent wound up becoming totally minor figures in the final released version.

The nice thing about Star Wars now is that some of these actors, like Forest Whitaker, do occasionally get a second crack at their characters. But a frustrating number of great stars have basically been squandered in unimportant – or sometimes totally pointless — Star Wars roles. Here are 12 notable examples.

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