Warning: This post contains some spoilers for the third Star Wars trilogy, which most of you have seen or at least already had spoilered.
Adam Driver is one of the most exciting and versatile actors working right now. To some he’s the star of the new Michael Mann. To many, though, he’s Kylo Ren from the third Star Wars trilogy. Driver is excellent in those, too, playing a moody, deeply troubled character who winds up going part Oedipus. That happened in his first movie, The Force Awakens. He got better, though, at least by the threequel. Thing is, originally he was supposed to get worse.
During a recent appearance on The Rich Eisen Show (as caught by Deadline), Driver talked about when he first signed up to play the initially Dark Side-loving son of Han Solo. Abrams initial idea of where Kylo wound wind up by movie three was not what made it to screen:
“I had an overall arc that in mind that [Abrams] wanted to do. His idea was that [Kylo’s] journey was the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident and the most committed to the dark side. And then by the last movie, he’s the most vulnerable and weak. He wanted to start with the opposite. This character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side. I tried to keep that arc in mind, regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway, because it changed while shooting. But I was still focused on that.”
But Rian Johnson, who took over for The Last Jedi, had a different idea of where Kylo could go. Instead of getting more evil, he softened up a bit. Not too much. But when Abrams took back over for The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo fully (mostly) flip-flopped, ending dead but redeemed (but dead).
“The last one, it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that,” Driver explained. “And evolving into Ben Solo. That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning, but there was never a version where we’d see Ben Solo when I first signed up for it.”
Still, even if Abrams’ original arc for Kylo had been honored, Driver would still have to contend with Star Wars heads blaming him for murdering Han Solo.
You can watch the Rich Eisen episode in the video below.
(Via Deadline)