When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and all of its intellectual properties one of the first things they did was throw out the extended universe as being "canon" to the movies. Since then they have confirmed that both the recent Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels animated series are part of the "canon" of the movies. While main characters such as Yoda, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and others have obviously appeared in those animated series, none of the characters created for those animated series have appeared in any of the movies - until now.
Thanks to EW it has been confirmed that legendary Hollywood actor Forest Whitaker will be portraying Saw Gerrera, a character that was first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (pictured above) as a rebel fighter on his home planet of Onderon. He was also mentioned in Star Wars: Rebels and in Star Wars: Bloodline, a novel by Claudia Gray which preceeds Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
