Karl Urban

Born on June 7, 1972, Karl Urban is a New Zealand native who works as an actor and is credited as providing "additional voices" in the 2019 motion picture _Star Wars_: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, where he plays a Steadfast First Order stormtrooper.

Audiences recognize Urban for his roles such as Éomer, a soldier of Rohan, in the second and third films of The Lord of the Rings; Leonard McCoy, a Starfleet medical officer, in the Star Trek film series reboot (also directed by J.J. Abrams); Vaako, the Necromonger commander, in the Riddick film series; and also for starring as Judge Dredd in Dredd and as Billy Butcher, an antihero, in The Boys, the Amazon web series.

Urban said in 2013 that he would never appear in a Star Wars film, as he thought that audiences would be turned off by seeing a Star Trek actor in a Star Wars film because he was recognizable from Star Trek. However, in 2018, he changed his mind, stating that he would gladly participate if given the chance. He commented on how fellow Star Trek actor Simon Pegg was unrecognizable in The Force Awakens and that there were ways to make his own Star Wars appearance possible. Eventually, Urban played a stormtrooper in the 2019 film The Rise of Skywalker. According to the actor, he was visiting director J.J. Abrams during filming, and Abrams put him in stormtrooper armor, which Urban described as making for "a really fun day on set" for the both of them.