Downton Abbey's Ed Speleers and Attack the Block's John Boyega are on a shortlist of five actors tipped for a leading role in director JJ Abrams' Star Wars: Episode VII, reports Variety.  The pair join Jesse Plemons, who was in Breaking Bad, as well as stage specialists Matthew James Thomas and Ray Fisher, in the running to play a young Jedi apprentice who will take on Adam Driver's previously announced "Darth Vader-like" villain.  Episode VII will focus on the heroes of the original trilogy – Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo – but a younger actor is also being sought who will presumably move to centre stage for succeeding films. Variety reports that Abrams is considering whether to cast a black actor in an effort to move away from the traditional Anglo-Saxon bent of Star Wars heroes.  Chichester-born Speleers, plays Jimmy Kent in Downtown Abbey. He had a brush with big-budget Hollywood film-making in 2006 with the lead role in poorly received swords and sorcery fantasy Eragon.  In 2011, Boyega won a British independent film award for most promising newcomer for his turn as Moses in Joe Cornish's well-received sci-fi romp Attack the Block. He is tipped to play the pioneering African American sprinter and Berlin Olympics four-time gold medallist Jesse Owens in a high-profile biopic.  Abrams has previously mentioned talks with Plemons over a role in Star Wars. The American actor played sinister rookie methylamine chemist Todd Alquist in the final season of Breaking Bad.  James Thomas is also British. Along with appearances on the small screen in Doctors and Casualty, he has made his name in the US with a leading role in musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. Ray Fisher played Muhammad Ali on the New York stage last year in the play Fetch Clay, Make Man.  Episode VII, due in cinemas Christmas 2015, will be the first Star Wars film to emerge since the series creator George Lucas sold all rights to Disney for $4.05bn (£2.46bn) two years ago. The studio plans a new trilogy of films as well as a number of spin-off "origins" movies featuring iconic figures.
And the Jedi goes to … Breaking Bad's Jesse Plemons and Downtown Abbey's Ed Speleers among those shortlisted for lead role