Richard E. Grant

"What is extraordinary is that I saw the first one when I was a drama student in 1977 when I was 20 years old. So if you had told me that four decades and a year later I would be in one of them in the ninth and final Skywalker saga, I would have said you need mental health help because it would seem so beyond the realm of any possibility at all."

―Richard E. Grant^[2]

Richard E. Grant (born May 5, 1957^[1]) is an Academy Award–nominated Swazi-English actor who portrays Allegiant General Enric Pryde in the 2019 film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker. His first film role was the title character in the 1987 landmark black comedy Withnail and I, followed by appearances such as Doctor Jack Seward in the 1992 horror film Bram Stoker's Dracula, British politician Michael Heseltine in the 2011 drama film The Iron Lady (alongside Michael Pennington) and the scientist Zander Rice in the 2017 superhero film Logan. On television he appeared in the seventh series of the rebooted Doctor Who.

Grant had to audition for Star Wars by acting out scenes from "a forties British war film." A few months later, he was taken to Pinewood Studios to meet J.J. Abrams, who told him he had the part.^[3]