Is Matt Smith Actually In Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker?

3. Official Star Wars Website Mentions Smith (April 2019)

Patient Zero Matt Smith
Vertical Entertainment

At this stage, everyone was starting to doubt that Smith was in the film, such was the firmness of his earlier statement. But then, the plot thickened.

In April 2019, Star Wars' UK website (via ComicBook.com) listed Smith in the cast list for Episode IX, stating that he would be appearing alongside the likes of other franchise newcomers Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, and Dominic Monaghan, a group of actors who are definitely in the film.

Much like Variety's report and Mr. Sunday Movies' rumour, this shouldn't be taken as a confirmation. There's a chance that the team responsible for updating the website just used information they found on Google, rather than asking internally. If Smith's role was supposed to be a secret, there's no way the marketing team would be given the go-ahead to add him to this cast list, so, if anything, this was a slip-up.

But something even more interesting happened next: Smith's name was removed from the cast list entirely. Was this because he isn't in the film? Or was it to preserve secrecy? At the very least, this development kept the Smith/Rise of Skywalker connection alive - there's no smoke without fire, after all.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!