Ryan Gosling, Hayden Christensen lead Star Wars reveals at D23

Ryan Gosling appears at Disney’s D23 Entertainment Showcase, where Lucasfilm unveiled new details about Star Wars: Starfighter. The Canadian actor will play Kade Auberon in the Shawn Levy-directed film, due in theatres May 28, 2027.

Photo: The Walt Disney Company/Image Group LA

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Two Canadian actors were at the centre of some of the biggest Star Wars news coming out of Disney’s D23 fan event, with Ryan Gosling revealing new details about his first trip to the galaxy far, far away and Hayden Christensen returning as Anakin Skywalker.

Gosling appeared alongside Canadian filmmaker Shawn Levy during Disney’s studio showcase, where Lucasfilm revealed that the Ontario-born actor will play Kade Auberon in the upcoming Star Wars: Starfighter. The audience was also shown an exclusive first look at footage from the film.

The film’s official synopsis follows a cynical rogue whose mysterious past sends him on a dangerous adventure across the galaxy. Gosling offered another hint about Kade, describing him as a man from the “wrong side of the galaxy” whose fate becomes tied to an exceptionally fast starfighter.

Starfighter is being billed as an original standalone story rather than another chapter centred on the Skywalker family. It takes place about five years after the events of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in a period of the franchise timeline that has not previously been explored on screen.

The film is scheduled to open in theatres May 28, 2027.

Levy, who was born in Montreal and whose recent directing credits include Deadpool & Wolverine, is directing from a screenplay by Jonathan Tropper. The cast also includes Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Amy Adams.

For Gosling, the appearance also brought him back to one of the places where his screen career took off.

Before films including Barbie, La La Land and Blade Runner 2049, the London, Ont.-born actor appeared as a child performer on The All New Mickey Mouse Club.

“I owe a lot to Disney,” Gosling told the D23 audience as he reflected on the company coming to his hometown more than three decades ago and the role that experience played in changing the direction of his life.

Gosling was not the only Canadian returning to the Star Wars spotlight.

Vancouver-born Hayden Christensen joined Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni and stars Rosario Dawson and Eman Esfandi at D23 as Lucasfilm unveiled the first teaser for the second season of the Disney+ series and announced a Jan. 20, 2027 premiere date.

Christensen will again play Anakin Skywalker.

The teaser shows Anakin training the younger Ahsoka Tano, played by Ariana Greenblatt, and communicating with Rosario Dawson’s adult Ahsoka as she faces the continuing threat posed by Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Christensen told the audience that Anakin will continue to advise and challenge his former apprentice as Ahsoka wrestles with questions about her own relationship to the Jedi.

Christensen first returned to the role in the 2022 Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi and later appeared as Anakin in the first season of Ahsoka, decades after portraying the character in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

The two projects will arrive during a significant year for the franchise. Ahsoka returns in January 2027, while Starfighter reaches theatres in May as Star Wars marks 50 years since the original film debuted in 1977.

Unlike the Ahsoka teaser, which Lucasfilm released publicly following the presentation, the Starfighter footage shown at D23 has so far remained exclusive to attendees.