Star Wars welcomes its first openly transgender actor

The Star Wars franchise will welcome its first transgender actor, as Abigail Thorn has joined the cast of the upcoming Disney+ show, The Acolyte.

Announced all the way back in 2020, The Acolyte will be a Star Wars show that takes viewers 100 years before the first film in the timeline, The Phantom Menace. Described as a mystery-thriller, it'll follow a Jedi Master and Padawan who investigate a series of crimes throughout the galaxy. On the way, they’ll encounter dark forces, which likely means there’ll be a Sith or two knocking about.

So far Amandla Stenberg, Jodie Turner-Smith, Dafne Keen and others have been cast, and will now be joined by the first transgender actor to appear in a Star Wars series. British actor Abigail Thorn will be joining the show’s cast, playing the character of Ensign Eurus.

Not much is known about the character, but an Ensign is another term for a low-ranking officer in space-navies, so Eurus may be taking the role of the daring-pilot character that’s become a key Star Wars trope over the years.

Thorn has had an extensive career in acting, writing and directing, and came out as a transgender woman in 2021, sharing her story on the YouTube Channel Philosophy Tube, along with her new name and preferred pronouns. Her most recent work is a stage-performance called The Prince.

Scheduled for release sometime in 2024, The Acolyte will likely be due a trailer sometime later this year. The series will reportedly run for eight episodes.

The Acolyte isn’t the only Star Wars project in the works at the moment, as several shows and films are slated for release over the next few years, such as the Ashoka show, the fourth season of The Mandalorian, and a new trilogy set in the past, present and future of the Star Wars galaxy.