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Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK
Throughout its 45-year existence, Star Wars has tended to cast either unknowns or rising stars in the franchise’s biggest roles, which helps offset any dangers that the audience’s immersion could potentially be ruined by seeing an A-list stalwart wielding a lightsaber.
Dating right back to 1977, it would be fair to say that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Pedro Pascal weren’t exactly household names prior to boarding a galaxy far, far away, even though many of them had plenty of experience and recognizable credits under their respective belts.
One workaround favored by the sequel trilogy was to have the most famous names make brief, uncredited, and/or unrecognizable cameos, an approach that saw the likes of Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Simon Pegg, Bill Hader, Justin Theroux, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and others pop up across The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
Christian Bale is a lifelong fan of Star Wars, and he’d love to take part in a future big screen project, but he did admit in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that there’s one role in particular he’d love above all others.
“All I ever wanted in Star Wars was to be in a Star Wars outfit and hit my head on a door or something as I walked through. The real nerds who watched Star Wars way too many times always knew about that one scene where the Stormtrooper hits his head on the door as he comes through. I wanted to be that guy. That was it. But look, if I’m fortunate enough to be more than that, oh man, yeah. What a delight that would be. I’ve still got the figures from when I was little. I also know Kathy Kennedy very well because she was working with Spielberg when I did Empire of the Sun, and now, she runs the Star Wars universe.”
If there’s a chance to put Christian Bale in any movie, then it’s an opportunity well worth taking, so maybe one day we’ll see the Oscar winner and former Batman in Star Wars, whether he’s only there to hit his head or not.