Talisa Garcia “honoured” to be first trans actress cast by Disney in Lucasfilm production
Talisa Garcia has made history as the first openly transgender person to be cast by Disney in a Lucasfilm production. Willow is set to follow a princess who assembles a party to help her on a quest to find her twin brother.
It will be a TV spin-off of the 1980s film starring Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley, among others. Garcia is set to star in a small speaking role as a Queen and the mother to Tony Revolori’s character who goes on the quest, Deadline reported.
She is rumoured to appear in just one episode, but her casting marks both the first known time a trans person has appeared in a Lucasfilm production and the first time one has depicted a cis character in a Disney+ film or series. “I feel so blessed and honoured to be part of the Willow family; this is quite literally the definition of ‘a dream come true’,” she wrote on Instagram shortly after news of her appearance broke on 7 April.
She added: “I was in so much pain from growing up in the wrong body that I spent hours living in a fantasy world where I was a princess or, in my more daring flights of fancy, even a queen, in a magical Disney production. “I would never have dared to tell anyone of these ideas back then as they seemed so impossible, so ridiculously out of reach but regardless, I never stopped dreaming.” Willow is scheduled for release on Disney+ sometime in 2022.
