Did Mena Massoud just confirm his casting as a live-action Ezra Bridger?

The search for Star Wars’ next live-action star is on… or at least the unofficial search is on — seeing as much of the casting rumors for Star Wars come down to pure leaks, scoops and speculation since Star Wars is never fully open about their plans for the future.

But of course, things do slip through the cracks, and there have been plenty of rumors as of late about who’s next in line to join the live-action Star Wars family. And from the looks of it, Star Wars Rebel character Ezra Bridger has long been speculated to be one of the next characters to make the leap from the animated world into the live-action one.

Now, there’s more evidence that could be pointing to who’ll be taking on the role of the Force-sensitive hero when it’s his time to return to the screen. And the star of Aladdin (2019), Mena Massoud, is the latest frontrunner. This week, Massoud shared a photo of himself on Instagram. And while it certainly is a flattering photo of himself, it’s the caption that has us more interested:

"Hey, just so you know, when I escape I won’t hurt any of you."

As The Direct points out, this quote comes from the one and only Ezra Bridger during season 2 of Rebels.

Has Ezra Bridger been cast?

The exciting thing about this post is that it could mean that Massoud was indeed cast as Ezra Bridger. Just recently, it was rumored that Massoud was eyed to play the fan-favorite character, so the timing seems quite suspicious.

But at the same time, it could also simply be a coincidence, with the quote that he chose to share having no relation to him being cast. We’ve seen with actor Rahul Kohli that sometimes these kinds of things can be simple trolling — as his Star Wars-related posts had fans guessing he was cast as Ezra Bridger. But ultimately, he revealed that the posts were made in good fun.

At some point, it does seem highly likely that Lucasfilm will announce Ezra’s live-action debut, and maybe we’ll get a Thrawn announcement alongside it too!

For more, keep up with Dork Side of the Force.