One of the greatest aspects of the expanded Star Wars universe that has emerged in recent years is the emergence of new names, new faces, new villains, and new perspectives. Respawn’s games, 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and the upcoming 2023 sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, have introduced us to a range of fascinating new characters, from Greez to Cere, Trilla, and of course our lead protagonist, and hero Cal Kestis. The Star Wars universe has been doing more and more in recent years to blend characters from the animated works, series like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or Star Wars Rebels, by creating live-action representations of characters such as Ahsoka Tano, so who is to say that the likes of Cal Kestis can’t break out from beyond the video games?
Speaking to EW, Cal Kestis’ face and voice, Cameron Monaghan was asked about this prospect, and whether he harbored any desire to appear in future Star Wars stories beyond the games that Respawn has been developing. To this line of questioning, Monaghan said,
I love this character. They’re starting to explore him through other mediums — we have a novel coming up. It’s been really amazing doing it within the video game space because I think games are vastly under-explored and underutilized, and are only really getting their due in this moment — people are looking at games and seeing they’re incredible and moving and significant. So my priority right now is to make sure we have a satisfying arc within the games. What happens or where Star Wars wants to go from there is anybody’s guess, but I can say I love Cal and it’s been a joy finding him over the past few years. So we’ll see.
Monaghan has certainly been working on his lightsaber craft, as was clear with his appearance on stage during The Game Awards, and he went on to discuss his learnings of the lightsaber, but also the need to defer to stunt coordinators to help execute some of Cal’s more complicated maneuvers. He said,
I have definitely stolen a fair amount of lightsaber props. Maybe I shouldn’t say that ’cause I might have people coming to my house to collect them. But it’s really cool that we get the chance to perform with the sabers. We have an amazing stunt coordinator, Derron Ross, and we have a really fantastic stunt team. Nothing with action is done without stunt teams. You can talk to an actor and they might tell you they do all their own stunts, but at the end of the day there’s always gonna be someone capable of doing it better than you can. We had such talented stuntmen and stuntwomen on set. The stuff they do with lightsabers is just so freaking cool. Obviously, you try to learn as much as you can along the way, but I have to give them their due because they’re awesome.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will be launching on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on March 17, 2023.
