Ian McDiarmid may not know what the future holds for the Star Wars film franchise, but one thing he does know is he doesn’t want anyone else but him to play Emperor Palpatine.
“I suppose there must be a chance but I think you’d find out about it more quickly than I would,” McDiarmid explained to the BBC about the possibility of him returning to the saga. “But there is what they call the anthology series and, actually, the most recent one, Rogue One, was about the time when I was in charge. I was referred to a few times, Darth Vader popped up, but you did not see me. Maybe they are keeping me as a surprise for later but I have no idea. Of course, I don’t want anyone else to play him.”
He’s best known for his role as Palpatine. It made him one of the most notable characters in the franchise.
He played the villain in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, The Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi.
Screenrant tells us, even though Palpatine was theoretically killed in Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader chose to save his son Luke Skywalker from Palpatine by throwing the Emperor into the Death Star’s reactor shaft, there’s still a chance we could see Palpatine show up in one of the anthology films Lucasfilm is producing. Palpatine won’t be making an appearance in the young Han Solo film slated to hit theaters in May, but there’s a chance he could show up in the future Obi-Wan Kenobi standalone currently in development or the many other anthology films Lucasfilm and Disney are considering surrounding Yoda, Boba Fett and even Jabba the Hutt.
“As far as the new films are concerned, I’m dead. There is no question about that,” McDiarmid says.
When The Force Awakens came out theories began to swirl that new villain Supreme Leader Snoke was actually Palpatine.
