Skip to main content
If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Who should play iconic video game characters Link and Princess Zelda in the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie?

We have some ideas, but we're also curious who YOU want to see in the roles

Legend of Zelda Poll
Image credit: Nintendo/Popverse

Every since the announcement of a brand new, live-action Legend of Zelda movie, there’s been seemingly one question on everyone’s lips: who should star in it?

Bringing Link and Zelda to life after almost 40 years as video game characters is going to be no small feat, leaving director Wes Ball and producers Avi Arad and Shigeru Miyamoto a difficult job in finding just the right actors for the job. (An even more difficult job, considering that the SAG-AFTRA strike is still ongoing as we write this.) Thankfully, we have some suggestions, just in case they’re looking.

Legend of Zelda movie's Link actor

As soon as the movie was announced, social media seemed to believe that this was Tom Holland’s moment, because he’s arguably the internet’s favorite little guy at the moment, and therefore an obvious choice to play… well, the internet’s other favorite little guy. We have some alternate suggestions, however. For example, let’s give Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Game of Thrones, the upcoming The Artful Dodger, and of course being the tiny little kid in Love, Actually all those years ago) a shot to play a good guy for a change, or perhaps Shazam!’s Jack Dylan Grazer, who has charisma to spare and deserves a hit movie franchise of his own. Or maybe Walker Scobell should graduate from anchoring Disney+’s upcoming Percy Jackson series to the big screen… That is, if you’re not already convinced that the role should go to a newcomer that we don’t even know exists just yet.

Vote for your favorite of those options below — or leave a comment and tell us where we went wrong, and who you think we should choose, instead.

The Legend of Zelda movie's Zelda actor

Meanwhile, if we have a Link, we should probably have a Princess Zelda, too… but who? We’ll immediately knock everyone’s go-to princess out of the running, because Anya Taylor-Joy already has a Nintendo franchise to herself with Super Mario Bros. But what about the underrated Elle Fanning, whose turn in The Great should convince any doubters that she can handle royalty with aplomb? There’s already groundswell online for Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer — soon to show up in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes — to take the role, and of course, Zendaya could complete the Tom Holland casting as Link for those excited by that idea. We’re going for a complete outsider in the role, though, because ever since Prey came out last year, we’ve wanted to see Amber Midthunder in everything. But again: maybe it should be a complete unknown?

Once again, vote below to choose your favorites of our selections… or head to the comments and tell us who you’d rather see as Zelda if you had ultimate control over the movie.


Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out our guides to upcoming movies, upcoming TV shows, upcoming comics, and upcoming comic conventions. If you're looking for specific franchises or genres, we have all the upcoming MCU, upcoming Star Wars, upcoming Star Trek, and upcoming DC movies & TV for you. If you're a fan of superheroes and not specific to just Marvel or DC, we have overall guides to all the upcoming superhero movies and upcoming superhero TV shows (and new seasons) as well.