Star Wars: Live-Action Thrawn Looks Just Like Pierce Brosnan

Star Wars has unveiled an official mural for the entire saga for Star Wars Celebration, and the live-action style art looks eerily like Pierce Brosnan. After establishing that all former Expanded Universe content would be labeled “Legends” and deemed non-canon, one of the characters most lamented by fans was Grand Admiral Thrawn, but fortunately, he’s made a return into official canon in recent years in a big way.

Introduced to Star Wars canon by Star Wars Rebels, Thrawn is a ruthless Imperial Grand Admiral intent on hunting down and destroying the Rebel cells that are starting to form an organized resistance to the Galactic Empire. He disappeared at the end of the series and it’s not known exactly where he went, along with Ezra Bridger, but several books have been released in the meantime chronicling his life leading up to the events of Star Wars Rebels.

The fact that this new image of Thrawn is the spitting image of Pierce Brosnan could be a total fluke, but given the way Lars Mikkelsen voices the character on Star Wars Rebels and the way the character’s internal monologues are written by Timothy Zahn in his new Thrawn novels, Pierce Brosnan would be a perfect fit for the character. It’s definitely understandable if this new official art triggers speculation about a possible Thrawn live-action appearance, played by Pierce Brosnan, in the near future. This is especially interesting as a cover for Thrawn Alliances previously put him next to Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker, but that version of Thrawn looked a lot more like Jon Hamm.

Timothy Zahn originally created Thrawn for the Expanded Universe’s Thrawn trilogy of books Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, but since he’s been brought back he’s been given a new canon Thrawn trilogy of Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances, and the upcoming Thrawn: Treason. His arc is very similar to that of the Expanded Universe version, but updated to fit other Star Wars canon stories.

Hailing from outside the known galaxy, Thrawn is an officer of the Chiss Ascendency who leaves home and joins the Empire apparently in search of a means to fight off some unknown threat against his own people (similar to the Expanded Universe’s Yuuzhan Vong. He rises through the ranks quickly and gains favor with Emperor Palpatine, finding himself at odds with Darth Vader (partly due to his previous adventures with Anakin Skywalker), and even helps Palpatine plot a course out into the Unknown Regions – a course taken by the fleeing Imperial Remnant that would eventually become the First Order.

With his potential ties to the First Order and lingering story threads, fans are of course curious about Thrawn’s future in Star Wars canon, and now especially curious if that future involves a live-action appearance played by Pierce Brosnan.