Star Wars: Rogue One’s Darth Vader has been cast!

You still buzzing from that epic first trailer for Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? I know I sure as hell am. And despite our dissection of said trailer, there’s still a lot that remains under wraps and only rumoured. One such fact that has been widely reported but of which we’ve never actually seen any official evidence was that Darth Vader himself would be showing up in this tale (which takes place right before the events of the original Star Wars: A New Hope). Now we may just have got the confirmation we needed.

Flickering Myth is reporting that Spencer Wilding has been cast to play the iconic villain in the upcoming film. If that name doesn’t ring a bell it’s because Wilding is really more of a stunt actor who’s had the occasional bit roles in some big productions like Batman Begins, Doctor Who and Game of Thrones. And, as luck would have it, probably his biggest role actually had his face hidden under a bunch of makeup and prosthetics as he played the prison guard alien in Guardians of the Galaxy who took Peter Quill’s Walkman.

Standing at 6ft7 though, Wilding will definitely match up to the part physically. Actor David Prowse, who played Vader in the original films, stood at 6ft5. Flickering Myth’s report also goes on to state that Wilding has been practicing lines of dialogue on set, which means that Vader will have a proper speaking role and not just show up in a cameo fashion. Of course, much like Prowse, Wilding’s line delivery will more than likely be dubbed over with James Earl Jones’ iconic voice for the character. And unlike the very surprised Prowse, Wilding probably knows they’re going to do that.

Rogue One is set to tell “the story of how a group of unlikely heroes unite to undertake a daring and seemingly impossible mission to steal the plans for the Death Star”. Those are of course the very same plans that Vader is trying get back from Princess Leia at the start of A New Hope, so it’s easy to see how he would fit into the story.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is currently scheduled for release on December 16, 2016.

This article originally appeared on TheMovies

Last Updated: April 13, 2016