7 Star Wars Actors Who Quit
These actors all had enough of Star Wars.
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00:00Star Wars is pretty much a dream gig for vast swathes of actors,
00:04but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a good fit for everybody,
00:08or that actors want to keep playing around in that Tadoween sandbox forever.
00:12And so, sometimes actors who've appeared in the franchise end up drawing a line and calling it a day,
00:18deciding to walk away into that big old binary sunset, never to return,
00:22or at least to not return until they've decided that actually this is quite a nice gig.
00:27I'm Ewan Sleazebagano, this is What Cool to Star Wars, and here are 7 Star Wars Actors Who Quit.
00:33Number 7, Freddie Prinze Jr.
00:36Freddie Prinze Jr. provided the voice of Jedi Kaden Jarrus throughout Star Wars Rebels Four Seasons,
00:41which culminated with the character's sacrificial death,
00:44seemingly bringing his Star Wars tenure to a natural enough end when the show too concluded in 2018.
00:50However, Prinze Jr. did end up reprising the role in cameo form in both The Rise of Skywalker,
00:56and in an episode of Star Wars The Bad Batch's first season,
00:59since which he straight-up confirmed that he's 100% done with the character.
01:04In an interview with Christian Harloff, he said that,
01:07Quote,
01:24Prinze Jr. further confirmed that he would not be appearing as the character in the upcoming live-action Ahsoka series, adding,
01:31Quote,
01:31I'm done with Kaden. I'm too old for that stuff.
01:34While this technically doesn't preclude Prinze Jr. from playing another Star Wars character in the future,
01:40reading between the lines, it certainly sounds like he's happy to move on to other things.
01:44Also, gotta love that energy in general.
01:45What do you love, Freddie Prinze Jr.? Great dude.
01:48Number 6, John Boyega.
01:51John Boyega rose to prominence playing Finn in the Star Wars sequels,
01:55though since the release of The Rise of Skywalker,
01:58the actor has spoken candidly about his mixed experience working on the films,
02:03namely how Finn's role was reduced in importance over the course of the trilogy.
02:08But with the potential for future Star Wars films to bring Finn back into the fold,
02:12it was just a matter of time before Boyega was asked about his potential involvement,
02:16and in a SiriusXM interview last summer, he gave a characteristically no-nonsense response.
02:23Quote,
02:28where you can just enjoy him in other things. The games, the animation.
02:32But I feel like The Force Awakens to The Rise of Skywalker was good for me.
02:35Boyega certainly sounds like he's genuinely done with Star Wars,
02:39which is especially interesting given that Disney is currently developing a new Star Wars movie
02:44centered around Daisy Ridley's Rey.
02:46You would think the studio would have loved to have Boyega be a part of it,
02:49but evidently, that's not gonna happen.
02:51Either way, it's onwards and upwards for Boyega.
02:54Really excited to see where his career goes next.
02:56Number 5, Benicio Del Toro.
02:59Benicio Del Toro played the small but memorable role of DJ in The Last Jedi,
03:04but it actually wasn't the first time he was set to play a character in the Star Wars universe.
03:09Del Toro was apparently not only considered to play Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace,
03:13but it even won the part and was basically locked into playing the villain for several months of pre-production.
03:18However, once George Lucas reduced Maul's role during script rewrites,
03:22Del Toro opted to quit the film and, for the better part of 20 years,
03:27seemingly the franchise as a whole.
03:29Given that he instead went on to appear in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic the very next year,
03:33for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar,
03:36he's probably pretty okay with how things turned out.
03:38As for Del Toro's potential future in the franchise,
03:41he's expressed an interest in reprising the role of DJ,
03:44though it's also tough to consider where he'd possibly fit in in a future project.
03:48Number 4, James Earl Jones.
03:51James Earl Jones has of course provided the iconic voice of Darth Vader for almost an entire half-century,
03:57across a bevy of Star Wars media from movies to TV shows and so on.
04:02But last summer, Jones confirmed that he had officially retired from voicing Vader,
04:06and that his final time personally portraying the character was in 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.
04:12However, what makes Jones' departure especially interesting
04:16is that he came to an agreement with Disney for his voice to be licensed out in perpetuity,
04:21with the cutting-edge AI software being used to generate new dialogue,
04:24using Jones' existing voice recordings as a reference.
04:29The tech was first used in Obi-Wan Kenobi,
04:32and let's be honest, would you have any idea it wasn't Jones voicing Vader unless someone told you?
04:38But full disclosure everyone, I hate this.
04:40We've had loads of other Darth Vader voiced actors in games before.
04:44Latching onto Jones' voice this way feels like a grim prophecy of where the studios might be taking this technology,
04:50and yeah, I'd rather Star Wars wasn't a part of it.
04:53Number 3, Dennis Lawson.
04:56Dennis Lawson played X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy.
05:01Though in the decades that followed, the actor largely swore off the franchise,
05:05only lending his voice to the 2001 video game Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2, Rogue Leader.
05:10In fact, leading up to the release of The Force Awakens,
05:13rumors began swirling that Lawson would finally reprise the role of Wedge in live-action form,
05:18only for him to bluntly reply that he was done with the series.
05:22Quote,
05:25More recently, Lawson's nephew Ewan McGregor, who of course plays the younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi,
05:30suggested that his uncle isn't too fond of the entire circus of fandoms surrounding the franchise.
05:36Quote,
05:43It sort of annoyed him.
05:44However, in an unexpected twist of fate, Lawson did indeed return for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo
05:50as Wedge in The Rise of Skywalker, and has since lent his voice to the Star Wars Squadrons video game,
05:56and also an episode of the animated anthology series, Star Wars Visions.
06:00Number 2, Ahmed Best.
06:02Few actors, if any, have had a rougher time with Star Wars than Ahmed Best.
06:07Portrayed Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy,
06:10and proceeded to be mauled by grown adults upset at a children's comic relief appearing in a kid's movie.
06:15Yes, I'm going there.
06:16I was three when The Phantom Menace came out and had a dancing Jar Jar and a cuddly Jar Jar plush.
06:21I was Jar Jar Man.
06:22The personal attacks leveled against Best over the years became so overwhelming as to send him into a deep depression.
06:29Though, he did nevertheless return to voice Jar Jar in several Robot Chicken episodes,
06:34the Star Wars The Clone Wars animated series, and the animated short Lego Star Wars The Empire Strikes Out.
06:40Yet, in 2016, Best confirmed that he had quit Star Wars for good,
06:45stating in an interview with the YouTube channel These Are The Actors You're Looking For,
06:50that he felt he'd done enough as Jar Jar.
06:53Quote, I think I've done my damage.
06:55I'm good with where I stand in the Star Wars universe.
06:57I'd say no.
06:58I think I did what I did.
06:59I thought it was great.
07:00It was fun.
07:01But now it's time to move on.
07:03Best kept his word for a few years,
07:05though seemingly had a change of heart once Lucasfilm approached him to return the Star Wars franchise as an entirely new character.
07:12In 2020, Best hosted the game show Star Wars Jedi Temple Challenge as a new Jedi Master by the name of Celebrant Beck,
07:19who reappeared more recently in The Mandalorian's third season,
07:22where he was revealed to be the Jedi who saved Rogu from Order 66.
07:26All in all, a lovely conclusion to Best's difficult Star Wars journey.
07:30And number one, Terrence Stamp.
07:33Terrence Stamp was an undeniably brilliant get for The Phantom Menace,
07:37even if his acting talents were largely wasted on the relatively unremarkable character of Chancellor Finis Valorum,
07:43who was eventually kicked out of the Senate and replaced by Palpatine, played of course by E. McDiarmid.
07:48In the years since the film's release, Stamp has minced no words at all about his displeasure shooting his few scenes,
07:54citing George Lucas's ostensible lack of interest in performance over the movie's cutting-edge visual effects.
08:00Stamp said in an interview with Empire that, quote,
08:18but my agent leaned on me and I wanted to meet Natalie Portman because I'd seen her in Leon.
08:22And I did meet her, and she was absolutely enchanting.
08:25But on the day I'm supposed to do my scene with her, for which I traveled halfway around the world, I said,
08:30where's Natalie?
08:31And George says, that's Natalie, and points to a bit of paper on the wall.
08:35It was just boring.
08:37Stamp added that he also wasn't well compensated for his role in the $150 million temp hole,
08:44and when he agreed to come back for a day of reshoots in exchange for a gift,
08:47Lucas ended up giving him some Star Wars stencils.
08:51As such, Stamp elected not to reprise his role for either of the prequel movies that followed,
08:55ditching a franchise that evidently didn't have much interesting work for him anyway.
09:00And there you have it, seven actors who quit Star Wars.
09:03Are there any other actors you hope will return to the galaxy far, far away?
09:06Or do you feel like it's for the best that they parted ways?
09:09Post your thoughts down in the comments below, and please be sure to drop the video a like if you enjoyed it,
09:13and also subscribe to World Culture Star Wars so you don't miss another upload.
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09:20Either way, I've been Ewan, this has been World Culture Star Wars,
09:23and until next time, may the force be with you. Bye!