UPDATE:
Judi Dench, a
nominee currently on the awards circuit has been rumored to play the rebel leader who helped co-ordinate the attack against the second Death Star. (Take this with a grain of salt.)
While promoting his new NBC series,
‘Believe,' created by
Alfonso Cuarón and for which he is executive producer,
J.J. Abrams also discussed
Star Wars: Episode VII and offered an update on the script's status.
We're working really hard and we've got our script and we're in deep prep. Full steam ahead, y'know. There've been so many of them. It's amazing to see how many there are. … But it's sweet because it shows that there's an interest in this movie that we all obviously know is there. But it is an incredible thing to see how many incredible things get thrown out that people then write commentaries about. How happy they are, how disappointed they are about something that is completely false. It's a lot of noise, frankly.
Director also confirmed he has spoken to ‘
Breaking Bad”s
Jesse Plemons about a part in the next chapter in the
Star Wars saga:
He is one of the actors that we've talked to, yeah. But, you know. It's not often that I read about actors that I'm going to be meeting… that I get to read articles about actors who are going to come in. And so I get to see someone and say, ‘Oh, I read that I'm going to see you.' … It's usually agents talking to people about what's happening. It's a lot of noise.
Abrams says right now he's only thinking about the main story of
Star Wars with Luke, Leia, Han before handing over to a new generation of Jedi.
The film is expected to filming shortly and remains scheduled to be released on December 18th, 2015.