Ryan Gosling, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors best known for his roles in ‘La La Land’, ‘Barbie’, and ‘Blade Runner 2049’, is about to make a childhood dream come true in the biggest way possible. The 44-year-old actor, who grew up sleeping on ‘Star Wars’ bed sheets, has now landed the lead role in the upcoming ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’, set to hit cinemas on May 28, 2027. Gosling himself described the experience as “surreal”, and it is not hard to see why.
Ryan Gosling on what it means to be part of ‘Star Wars’
Speaking to USA Today, Gosling opened up about just how deeply the franchise had shaped him long before he ever set foot on its set. “It was incredibly surreal. I had Star Wars sheets before I ever saw the film,” he said.He went on to compare ‘Star Wars’ to the Beatles, something that had always been there, quietly influencing him in ways he had not even fully realised. “It was my first, I think, I first became aware of what font was with Star Wars, or what a score could be through John Williams, or what a sound effect was through the lightsaber sound, or what a villain was or could be. It’s kind of endless,” he said. Most strikingly, Gosling revealed that while actually shooting the film, he found himself discovering just how much the franchise had formed his understanding of storytelling. “Its effect is so deeply ingrained that I was sort of peeling back the onion layers of that while shooting, realising just how much of it had formed my entire sense of storytelling and filmmaking,” he added.
What we know about ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
The film is set approximately five years after ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ and promises an entirely original story in a period never before explored in the franchise. Joining Gosling are Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Amy Adams, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, and Daniel Ings. Production wrapped in mid-December 2025 after around four months of filming, giving the team roughly 17 months for post-production.
A dream role for a lifelong fan
Gosling arrives at ‘Starfighter’ fresh off ‘Project Hail Mary’, one of his biggest films in recent years, making this his second major sci-fi adventure in quick succession. For a boy who once slept under ‘Star Wars’ sheets, the journey from fan to franchise lead does not get more full circle than this.