New Look At Ryan Gosling In Starfighter Has Dropped, And It’s Not The Setting I Was Expecting For A Star Wars Movie

After The Mandalorian & Grogu is released in May on the 2026 movies schedule, Star Wars: Starfighter will follow a year later. This upcoming Star Wars movie stars Ryan Gosling as a yet-to-be-identified character, and now we have a new look at the actor in Starfighter. As cool as it looks, the setting where we see the Barbie actor isn’t one I was expecting for a Star Wars movie.

Starfighter director Shawn Levy went on Instagram to post a picture of Gosling with his co-star Flynn Gray, who’s playing the nephew of Gosling’s character. Levy revealed that the two actors are out “somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea,” as you’ll see below:

I was not expecting Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray filming in the Mediterranean Sea to be one of the earliest looks Star Wars: Starfighter, following a few weeks after the first look. To be sure, it’s not like we haven’t seen large bodies of water before in the Star Wars franchise. Kamino from Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch was entirely comprised of water, as was the Endor system moon Kef Bir, where Kylo Ren and Rey had their duel on the wreckage of the second Death Star in The Rise of Skywalker.

So color me intrigued about what kind of setting the Mediterranean Sea is being used for in Star Wars: Starfighter. Are Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray’s characters on a new ocean world/moon, or are they just off the coast of some planet where there’s an abundance of land? More importantly, is Starfighter going to give us our first action sequence in a Star Wars movie taking place on a large body of water? That would certainly help with making this feature stand out from the others set in a galaxy far, far away.

Aside from the story being set five years after The Rise of Skywalker, plot details for Star Wars: Starfighter remain a tightly-guarded secret. With a title like that, though, it stands to reason this movie won’t be lacking in space battles and aerial combat. That’s what makes this first look so interesting to me, as a water-based action sequence has the potential to be something special, similar to the train sequence from Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Ryan Gosling and Flynn Gray’s castmates in Star Wars: Starfighter include Amy Adams (who’s reportedly playing the mother of Gray’s character), Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman and Daniel Ings. Shawn Levy is directing off a script written by Jonathan Tropper. Filming began in the United Kingdom on August 28.

Star Wars: Starfighter arrives in theaters on May 28, 2027. Meanwhile, break out your Disney+ subscription if you want to stream all of the released Star Wars movies and TV shows.