The Last Jedi: Justin Theroux and the almost bigger role

Easter eggs are nothing new to Star Wars. The eighth Saga film, The Last Jedi might not have been well received by fans, but there were plenty of actor nods in the film, including one by Justin Theroux.

Canto Bight became a staple in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The gambling district on the Outer Rim planet, Cantonica, housed shady individuals. It was also the place Finn and Rose traveled to find Justin Theroux’s Master Codebreaker.

No one knows his true name, and he’s only allowed to play dice games because he got banned from anything electronic. Maz informs Finn and Rose to go to Canto Bight and look for a man with a brooch shaped like a red flower pinned to his lapel. They didn’t end up getting to meet him because they got caught. Justin Theroux spoke about the character to CinemaBlend:

"“It was one of those things. Rian [Johnson] called me a couple of years before making it, and said, ‘Hey, there’s this character, blah, blah, blah.’ And I think over the course of the making the character became reduced, as they short of locked in on what the overall thing was. And then he sort of called me last minute, I’d sort of forgotten about it, and said, ‘Hey, it’s really essentially a cameo, and sort of a punchline. Would you like to come in and play this part?’ And I I thought, ‘Sure, that’d be…’ I mean, come on!”"

In early drafts of the screenplay, Master Codebreaker snagged himself a larger role. Though, it is unknown what that role might’ve been.

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Also, CinemaBlend played with a theory of what might have happened if Finn and Rose got to meet up with Master Codebreaker. If they had, this would prevent Benicio Del Toro’s D.J. from betraying them to the First Order.

While the role got reduced down to a cameo, Theroux didn’t appear to mind as he says:

"“There’s people who are dying to just put on a Stormtrooper outfit. And so it was great. I got one of the sort of more, to me, memorable scenes, with the hyper whacked out casino scene. Just to be on that set is just, obviously I’m a huge Star Wars fan and it’s a childhood dream. It was one of those ‘come to London for a week, put on a costume, and also a crazy moustaches, and do it.’ So it was fun.”"

While we don’t know anything much about the character, we can just assume he was a contact of Maz. After all, she wouldn’t have sent Finn and Rose on a wild Bantha chase if he wasn’t. He may appear in a novel further down the line. That’s up to Lucasfilm’s story group to decide. Also, it would be super interesting to see what his relationship with Maz was to earn himself a role as one of her informants.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out now on home release