Rooney Mara, Tatiana Maslany Testing for 'Star Wars' Stand-alone Movie
Rooney Mara in 2012
The first Star Wars stand-alone could come under attack from a clone.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Tatiana Maslany, the Canadian actress who stars as multiple replicants in BBC America’s hit series Orphan Black, is testing for the female lead in the Star Wars spinoff that is being directed by Gareth Edwards.
Rooney Mara, who starred in the David Fincher version of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is also due to test this week among a handful of others, according to multiple sources.
Additionally Felicity Jones, who just received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her work in The Theory of Everything, is said to be on the want list, although there may be scheduling issues with Inferno, the Da Vinci Code sequel that Ron Howard is due to direct this spring and summer.
Tatiana Maslany last year
Related: Meet the ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ Cast (Photos)
Plot and character details for the movie (will it focus on young Han Solo? Young Leia?) are being kept hidden deep in an R2 unit. Insiders say that reading and testing for the movie occurred in the U.K. in December and has now moved stateside.
At this stage, Lucasfilm has two Star Wars stand-alones in development, one with Edwards, the filmmaker behind last year’s Godzilla movie, and Josh Trank. Only the Edwards one has a release date: Dec. 16, 2016.
Edwards’ project is currently seeking writers after Garry Whitta completed a first draft and left the project.
Felicity Jones last year
In the aftermath, rumors surfaced that Simon Kinberg, who is already co-writing the Trank stand-alone with Lawrence Kasdan, would take over writing duties. Sources, however, say that while Kinberg is creatively involved in Star Wars in an overall manner, there are no plans for him to take over. Kinberg is additionally crafting the X-Men universe, writing the X-Men: Apocalypse script for Fox and overseeing the upcoming Fantastic Four reshoots for which he did the rewrites.
Disney had no comment on the testing nor did the actress’ reps.
Related: How ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ Lost Control of Its Secrets
Image credit: AP Photo/Matt Sayles, Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File, Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
