One of the pleasures of the final two seasons of “Breaking Bad” was watching the evolution of Todd, the character played by Jesse Plemons. His All-American Opie Cunningham exterior hid a truly dark heart, and Plemons played the role beautifully.
He’s been working for fourteen years, though. “Breaking Bad” may have seemed like a breakthrough moment for Plemons, but it’s one that he’s been building to for a while. He played young Matt Damon in “All The Pretty Horses” back in 2000, a damn fine piece of casting, and then he ended doing small roles on a lot of TV shows for a while before “Friday Night Lights” finally came along and he got the role of Landry Clarke.
TV has never been an issue for Plemons, and one of the things you learn as an actor when you’re working in television is to commit for a long period of time, and anyone who signs on for “Star Wars Episode VII” is going to have to be ready to be associated with “Star Wars” for the rest of their life. I’m not sure you really can explain to someone just how big an impact something like “Star Wars” is going to have on their lives.
According to The Wrap, Plemons is on his way to LA for a meeting with JJ Abrams, and he’s already auditioned. Abrams is definitely getting down to the wire in terms of picking his cast for “Episode VII.” Production is set to begin within a few months, and set construction is already underway in London. Things have been fairly quiet on the “Star Wars” front for the last few months, all things considered, but I would assume that will change as we get closer to the actual start of production. It’s a safe bet that Disney will maintain a very carefully calibrated social media presence with new “Star Wars” content over the entire course of production as a way of heading off the intense digging for secrets that has gone on during the production of other “Star Wars” films in the modern Internet age.
No word from The Wrap on what role Plemons is up for, but that’s not surprising. During the casting process, they’ve been careful to send out pages that aren’t using actual characters and scenes from the “Episode VII” script, and as a result, there have been no substantial leaks so far. I am perfectly fine with that, and it would entertain me to no end if Abrams and company kept the entire thing locked down all the way through production.
If Plemons does end up in the film, I’ll be excited to see what he does. He’s been a consistently interesting young actor so far, and seems equally adept playing decency and amorality, a mixture that should prove handy whichever way they cast him.
“Star Wars Episode VII” is due in theaters December 18, 2015.