For over 40 years now, Mark Hamill has been known for wielding lightsabers and battling evil as the Star Wars franchise's Luke Skywalker. Not only is he returning for a presumed final Luke performance in Star Wars: Episode IX, but he's also taking on one of his first regular live-action TV roles in many years by joining the popular History drama Knightfall. That exciting reveal and more casting news were tacked onto the overall announcement that History had renewed Knightfall for Season 2 in the first place, so it's definitely a win-win situation for fans.
With Knightfall having wrapped its freshman season all the way back in February, History certainly wasn't speedy about making any Season 2 declarations, but it's possible that the network execs were busy connecting the dots in finding a replacemen for former showrunner Dominic Minghella. The renewal announcement also noted that Knightfall is welcoming former The Flash co-showrunner Aaron Helbing to take over the day-to-day duties for Season 2, which will make for quite the interesting reunion with Mark Hamill, who made several appearances on The CW superhero drama reprising his role of The Trickster from the original 1990s The Flash TV series.
Speaking of Mark Hamill, History announced he'll be playing the role of Talus, who is a Knights Templar veteran of the Crusades, and one who has been weathered by his years of battle. He faced a decade as a captive in the Holy Land, and is currently being tasked with training The Order's newest initiates. Here's hoping we can expect to see the influential actor rocking a beard as big as his head, and slinging a weapon that requires a bit more brute strength than Force-strength.
While Mark Hamill has starred in and made cameo appearances in dozens upon dozens of TV series in his lengthy career, so many of those roles were for animated projects that utilized his amazing vocal talents. He'd most recently joined the cast of Transformers: Power of the Primes, but arguably his most famous voice role would be The Joker for Batman: The Animated Series, which spawned reprisals in other shows, films and video games. On the live-action front, he memorably served as the wedding official for The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon and Amy.
Knightfall is also filling out its Season 2 cast with Wolf Hall's Tom Forbes, who will play King Philip's tumultuous and impulsive son Prince Louis, who has his eye on the throne. The Royals' Genevieve Gaunt will play King Philip's daughter Isabella, who will be in the midst of earning her nickname as the She-Wolf of France. Perhaps we can expect the Knights Templar story to get a bit more historically grounded with this trio of new characters.
With over 25 million total viewers having taken in Season 1 of Knightfall, the series is currently cable's third most-watched new drama when Live+7 delayed stats are accounted for, so it's no big surprise that History is bringing it back for another season. With the show's production schedule taking around 6-7 months, we probably won't get to see Season 2 until early 2019. In the meantime, head to our fall premiere schedule to see what else is on the way.
