Darth Maul Actor Ray Park Almost Spoiled His Own Solo Cameo

It’s safe to say that no one expected Darth Maul to show up in Solo: A Star Wars story. However, if ardent fans of the Sith Lord were paying attention, they likely pieced together a few clues implying that the character would be returning to the big screen. As it turns out, quite a few of those clues came from Darth Maul actor Ray Park himself.

Park revealed how he got the job (and would eventually go on to nearly spoil it for fans) in an interview with Forbes. According to Park, the decision to include Darth Maul in the film came from Ron Howard, who has employed to complete filming on the project after Lucasfilm parted ways with the film’s original directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Park was in Guatemala when he got the call and jumped at the opportunity to play the character again on the big screen.

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That doesn’t mean Darth Maul has been out of the loop since his debut in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. In fact, the character has made intermittent appearances ever since, though largely through Sam Witwer’s voice work on the Star Wars: Rebels animated series, which ran from 2014 until 2018. Solo was a major opportunity for Park, though, as the Star Wars films have always had the appeal of big budget canonical action. However, Park very nearly spoiled the whole thing via his social media presence.

“I may have deleted a bunch, but if you go back and check all my Instagram posts, I was secretly telling everyone, but no-one knew,” said Park.

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Said Instagram posts make no bones about the fact that Park was gearing up to reprise his role in a live-action setting. One of the posts the actor mentioned straight up references him shaving his head and contains the hashtags #sith #sithlife #secrets and #solo.

The interview also came with a new photo of the Sith Lord, though that title itself is something of a complication. According to the lore of Star Wars: Rebels, Darth Maul is no longer a Darth, a title awarded to certain Sith Lords who have climbed high in the Dark Side ranks. Instead, the character is now simply named Maul. Additionally, the photo reveals the character’s robot legs, which are the result of a fight between himself and the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in Phantom Menace.