Jason Reitman is offering the world a one night only, live reading of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" with an entirely new cast. It's a part of his ongoing series taking classic films, recasting them, and presenting live-readings of the script, and will be coming to the stage this Thursday night.
Reitman will be debuting the show at The Theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles with a pretty interesting cast. Of course, Reitman isn't showing his hand too early, only revealing a few of his cast to Entertainment Weekly. He plans to unveil more of the actors he's signed on before Thursday. However, here are the cast members that are known:
Aaron Paul as Luke Skywalker
Reitman is mixing things up a bit by casting Aaron Paul as Luke, one would think in the hopes of bringing new energy to the part. Where Luke Skywalker was innocent, naive, and fairly trusting, Paul can bring a bit of surly, rough, authority-questioning attitude to the classic role.
J.K. Simmons as Darth Vader
Reitman choosing to cast J.K. Simmons isn't a huge surprise, as the actor has appeared in every single Jason Reitman film to date. However, casting Simmons as one of the baddest asses in the galaxy will certainly be an interesting transformation for the actor.
Stephen Merchant as C-3PO
Merchant is tall, goofy, and English. Not too much of a stretch here. However, Merchant is hysterical, so he will certainly be able to bring a new breed of humor to everyone's favorite protocol droid. Now, if they could also get Karl Pilkington and/or Ricky Gervais as R2-D2, the natural chemistry those guys share would be magical for the Droids.
Dennis Haysbert as Lando Calrissian
Dennis Haysbert is the perfect choice for Lando. Haysbert has that amazingly calming voice, but as we saw during Haysbert's tenure as the President on "24," he can also play that whip smart, quick-thinking aspects of Calrissian.
Kevin Pollak as Yoda
This one should certainly be interesting. Kevin Pollak is great at voices and impersonations, so it will certainly be fun to see what choices Pollak makes as he brings Yoda to life during the live read. Jason Reitman hasn't given Pollak any direction, either. Just as he is planning to let Aaron Paul bring a new spin to Luke, it seems like he's cool with Pollak bringing a new interpretation to Yoda. One has to wonder if Pollak will go the Frank Oz impersonation route, or if he creates a completely different Yoda.
Reitman has been recasting classic films for live-readings for some time now. Some of his other productions have been live readings of "The Princess Bride" and "Ghostbusters." Stay tuned to see when Reitman releases the names of the actors playing Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa.
