Willow star Talisa Garcia becomes first openly trans actress cast by Disney in Lucasfilm project: ‘A dream come true’
Disney in a Lucasfilm production by joining Willow.The upcoming series will see Warwick Davis reprise his role as the titular character from the 1980s fantasy hit, becoming Lucafilm’s first non-Star Wars-related production in five years.The Falcon And The Winter Soldier star Erin Kellyman joined the cast as Jade, with The Serpent actor Ellie Bamber and Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Tony Revolori also in the line-up.Talisa, who previously starred in crime drama Baptiste with Tchéky Karyo, is said to have been cast as a Queen and mother to Tony’s character, who joins in the quest to help the princess rescue her twin brother.She celebrated becoming the first openly trans actor to join a Lucasfilm project with a statement on Instagram, saying that she would spend ‘hours living in a fantasy world’ when she was ‘in so much pain from growing up in the wrong body’.‘I feel so blessed and honored to be part of the Willow family; this is quite literally the definition of “a dream come true”,’ she wrote.‘When I was at school I used to drive my teachers crazy, they were always trying to get me to concentrate in class and stop looking out the window daydreaming.
It must have been so frustrating for them but there was a reason I was unfocussed.’Talisa recalled how she would imagine being a princess or a queen ‘in a magical Disney production’, but she ‘would never had dared to tell anyone of these ideas back then as they seemed so impossible’.‘Here I am, all these years later, an actual queen in a magical Lucasfilm & Disney production.
That wild fantasy land that I used to disappear in to for escape and comfort is now reality,’ she stated.‘So, from one daydreamer to all the others out there… don’t stop!
