I knew about Del Toro's role in episode viii, but I'm really intrigued with the casting of Laura Dern. I really hope that her role won't be similar to Max Von Sydow, who I think was wasted in his role.
I'm familiar with several of Laura Dern's roles from David Lynch, but my favorite roles were as Ruth Stoops in Citizen Ruth and Amy from Enlightened.
I'm curious the role that she'd be given. She's so good at playing characters that have been beaten down in life. It's a far cry from the conventional leading women types that actresses from her generation are typically play.
She could end up playing another Ellie Satler type, but I really hope that it's different than that, and that she's not going to end up being wasted like Max Von Sydow, Terrence Stamp, and Christopher Lee.
It would be interesting if they cast her mom, Diane Ladd in this film too, as they've done work with each other in the past. Also, the announcement got me thinking about her father, Bruce Dern, who was in the eco sci-fi film, Silent Running. That film came out before Star Wars, and used similar props to what Star Wars would later use. The robots Huey, Dewey, and Louie have a passing resemblance to the gonk droids in the sandcrawler.
Because you'd think Hamill would have the full script some time ago and wouldn't say that unless he knew he had lines at some point?
