Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Last Jedi for those who still haven’t seen it.
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During the Canto Bight sequence in The Last Jedi, Finn and Rose Tico encounter some young orphans who slave away as stable hands in the pens holding the Fathiers, the racing steeds gambled on by the casino city’s wealthy class. In the very final moments of the movie, one stable boy reveals he’s Force-sensitive by pulling a broom to him. As he looks up at the stars, we see he’s wearing the ring Rose gave him that bears the symbol of the Resistance. Was this kid a new hope (ahem!) in the making?
This Force-sensitive orphan was named Temiri Blagg (or, as many fans have dubbed him, “Broom Boy”). The child actor who played him, Temirlan Blaev, opened up in a recent interview that he would have liked to have seen his character return for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, possibly in a scenario where Rey would have trained him, but he ultimately understands why he wasn’t asked back.
Blaev appeared on Jamie Stangroom’s Star Wars podcast These Are the Actors You’re Looking For (via LRM Online) where he was asked if he had expected “Broom Boy” to return for the final episode in the Skywalker Saga given the wild fan speculation about Last Jedi’s final scene and his character.
Before The Rise of Skywalker revealed Rey’s parents’ identities and her true heritage, it was easy to see how the next Star Wars movie might build upon the idea established in The Last Jedi that a nobody, as Rey saw herself, could actually be a somebody. The Last Jedi The Visual Dictionary described the orphaned stable hands of Canto Bight as “children abandoned on Cantonica by losing gamblers” not unlike how Rey believed she was forsaken by her parents for drinking money. Rey could have found a kindred spirit and potential Padawan in a Force-sensitive character such as young Temiri Blagg.
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Elaborating on whether he knew his character might return for Episode 9, Blaev explained: “I wasn’t sure because it could have been, yes, (the director) would’ve continued my story, how Rey would have trained me or helped me in some way.”
“But then at the same time, am I really that important? Am I someone big or am I really just a boy, a lucky boy in a galaxy far, far away?”
“A lot of people were asking me [about returning], and I said, ‘We’ll have to wait and see if I get called back. But I guess I kind of understand why it happened,” Blaev said. Ultimately, though, Temiri Blagg was just a symbolic character who appeared solely in The Last Jedi. Blaev, however, expressed hope that perhaps this little Rebel could return in some other Star Wars project in the future.
Blaev also revealed that for his audition, he was given a scene from Steven Spielberg’s E.T. to perform because he didn’t know he was trying out for a Star Wars movie. Although Blaev is only credited in the film as “Stable Boy,” he learned from reading The Last Jedi Visual Dictionary that his character had an actual name — and was delighted it sounded so much like his own.
He also said he was a huge Star Wars fan before he got the job — at age 7 — and that his favorite Star Wars movie is Attack of the Clones and his favorite Star Wars character is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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Speaking of favorite Star Wars characters, check out who the IGN readers chose as their favorite Star Wars character of all time. Alas, Temiri Blagg ranked 189th out of the 200 characters included in our poll.
Source: IGN.com The Last Jedi's Broom Boy on Being Swept Out of Rise of Skywalker