Earlier this year came a flurry of rumors and teases that perhaps Aladdin star Mena Massoud had been tapped to play the part of Star wars character Ezra Bridger in live-action. Having made his first appearance in the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, it wouldn’t be totally out of the realm of possibility for Lucasfilm to do this having recently brought animated character Ahsoka Tano into live-action with The Mandalorian. Massoud himself threw gas on the fire, making an Instagram post where he quoted the character; but is it really happening? Speaking in a new interview, Massoud was asked about his cryptic tease, noting that it was simply him “manifesting” it into the world.
“Just manifesting, just manifesting, trying different things,” Massoud told Screen Rant. “Yeah, there’s not much more I can say about that, but, I had heard murmurings that this role was coming up and this is becoming a real thing. So I just kinda wanted to throw my name in the ring and — yeah, just part of manifesting what you want. I think we live in an age now that’s so different than ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, Hollywood, where there was no social media. It was really just your representatives, putting things out there for you. But now, we have the ability to put things out there for ourselves because of social media and because we can put things out there. So yeah, I just wanted to put it out there.”
Massoud continued, calling the opportunity to play Ezra “a dream come true,” and noting that he had experience in working on huge projects having done Aladdin already.
“I think I’ve proven that I can be successful in that environment,” he added. “I think it would just be a great opportunity to take everything that I learned on a set like Aladdin and implement it into the Star Wars or DC or Marvel universe. We’re talking about manifesting, so yeah, it would mean a lot, it would mean a lot.”
The initial rumor of Massoud being cast in the Ezra Bridger role pointed toward the character appearing in the previously announced Ahsoka series on Disney+. No real news on that show has been announced ever since it was confirmed that it was in the works. Actress Rosario Dawson is set to reprise her role in the show which will be set “within the timeline of The Mandalorian.”
To make things a little more interesting, Dawson herself seemingly confirmed previously that Massoud would play the role of Ezra in the series.