7 Star Wars Actors Who Quit

WhatCulture

02/01/2025

These actors all had enough of Star Wars.

Transcript

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.

09:16You can also head back on over to WorldCulture.com for more lists and pieces like this every day.

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!

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