Star Wars Battlefront 2’s 'hero' is Sleepy Hollow star Janina Gavankar… like, honestly, who knew?

***UPDATE, APRIL 15, 1450 ET / 1950 BST: EA just confirmed that Janina Gavankar will play elite Imperial officer Iden Versio in Star Wars Battlefront 2. As an 'Imperial hero', you'll follow her after the events of Endor, spanning the 30 years until Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the rise of The First Order. It'll form an official part of the Star Wars story, allowing us to see the war from a different perspective.***

***UPDATE, APRIL 15: Actor Janina Gavankar has updated her Twitter feed to include a fan-made picture of her stood with Ewoks, which does little to quell speculation that she'll appear in Star Wars Battlefront 2. A few hours later, as if further hints were necessary, she tweeted a photo which looks uncannily like the Endor scene from the Star Wars Battlefront 2 trailer that she (likely) appears in. The image includes a note to 'watch for a link' from 1430 ET which is when the Star Wars games panel begins at Star Wars Celebration. See the images after the original story below.***

Star Wars Battlefront 2’s lead character might be Sleepy Hollow and True Blood actor Janina Gavankar according to online speculation – and the evidence stacks up. The trailer’s narrator, an imperial stormtrooper, is a compelling visual and audio match for the US actor, whose homepage describes her as an ‘Actor. Musician. Geek’. Gavankar has previously appeared in Far Cry 4, as the voice of Amita, and the Halo 5: Guardians spin-off, Hunt the Truth. She’s recently (and repeatedly) shared Star Wars content on her Twitter feed – placing her in an elite club of several million people, admittedly – and interviewed Horizon Zero Dawn star Ashly Burch. Gavankar retweeted a comment from EA Motive writer Mitch Dyer, the studio believed to be handling the game’s single-player story, according to Game Rant – although we were unable to find this on her Twitter feed.

Either way, fans are convinced that Janina is the star of the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 story mode, which focuses on ‘The soldier’s untold story’, set after the events of Return of the Jedi.

We might be putting two and two together to make five, but Gavankar's Tweet below has an added layer of intrigue, if you consider it in the context of a self-confessed Star Wars fan landing a Battlefront 2 role. However, Feb 4 is only two months ago, which doesn’t feel like a long time to record mo-cap and audio for a video-game trailer and / or single-player campaign. Having said that, Hideo Kojima turned around the Death Stranding debut trailer in a similar, if not shorter, time-scale. 

There is, crudely, a more practical rationale to be made, since game publishers tend to prefer working with slightly off-radar Hollywood talent – largely due to the time and financial cost of (re)recording mo-cap and dialogue, especially since games have rich potential for multiple changes until the final months before release. That, plus the fact that Gavankar *looks exactly like* the lead character in the trailer. And genuinely loves games and sci-fi. The actor has received a lot of Tweets asking about her role in Star Wars Battlefront 2 today, and her response isn’t without a sense of humour (or likely an NDA clause). 

All will no doubt be revealed at the Star Wars games panel at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando this Saturday April 15. For more info, check out everything we know about Star Wars Battlefront 2 so far.