Star Wars 7: What You Should Watch To Familiarise Yourself With The New Cast Members

2. Max Von Sydow - The Seventh Seal

Bringing a veteran's touch to proceedings (as Alec Guinness did in the original Star Wars trilogy) will be Max von Sydow, whose impressive seven decade career has seen him perform competently in eight languages on film, television and in a highly renowned game (Skyrim). He has worked with many great directors, including Steven Spielberg (Minority Report), John Huston (The Kremlin Letter), William Friedkin (The Exorcist), Woody Allen (Hannah And Her Sisters), Sydney Pollack (Three Days Of The Condor) and Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) One of the greatest directors of them all is Ingmar Bergman, who mentored von Sydow and directed him in some of his earliest (and greatest) roles. Perhaps the best known of these is the Seventh Seal, which put Bergman on the map. In the film, von Sydow plays a knight in plague-ridden Medieval Sweden. Death, personified as a black-robed monk, comes for him, prompting him to challenge the entity to a game of chess in an attempt to forestall his demise. Death accepts, leading to a powerful film that sees the knight attempt to perform one meaningful deed as his adversary attempts to ensure that nobody cheats and escapes him. Von Sydow would be excellent either as an Obi Wan-esque mentor figure or a Palaptine-esque elderly villain in Star Wars, given his range, and his co-stars will certainly benefit from performing alongside him as his acting legacy is expanded further with the film's release.