Adam Driver Talks Star Wars: Episode 7.
Entertainment Weekly interviewed Adam Driver for their Fall Movie Preview and as expected the Episode VII questions have not been spared…
Excerpts from EW (via JediNews)
“Doing Star Wars now—that’s surreal,” Driver volunteers. “I feel like that even with this cast. You start by try to stamp [that feeling] down as much as possible, just focus on what it is that you are there to do… Easier said than done.”
EW: Is there a sense of wonder that comes with being on that set? J.J. has shown us that there are actual spaceships there, not just green screen visual effects.
AD: Oh yeah. The thing about Star Wars that’s so good—sure there’s this huge [canvas]. It’s space, it’s a long time ago in a galaxy far away. That’s set up immediately. But in the midst of all those things, what has made those movies last so long is that they’re all grounded, which is something that is not so far off from every movie with huge universal themes of siblings and parents and betrayal and trust. That’s so generic and obvious, but it’s hard to balance those things. When you break all of those things down, really it’s just because someone wasn’t loved enough or felt betrayed. That’s what makes those movies so universal. I think they can get in your mind in big and sweeping ways.
EW: What did you love about the earlier Star Wars films?
AD: I always think back to the original movies and to those quieter moments where Luke is out in A New Hope, and there are the two suns setting, and it’s just such a quiet moment. It is the equivalent, basically, of a farm boy dying to get out of his small town and do something bigger. It’s those kinds of universal themes that ground this whole thing in space.
EW: George Lucas put a lot about fatherhood into that original trilogy. It turns out his own dad owned an office supply store, built it from the ground up, and wanted his son to, basically, “join me and together we will rule the office supply galaxy.” We don’t often see that kind of intimacy in large-scale Hollywood sci-fi epics.
AD: Friendship, I feel, is something that maybe isn’t investigated as much—or maybe I’m not watching those movies. It was such a huge part of the original three. “I’m going to go save my friend.” Everyone was going to go bail their friends out. “I can’t do this because my friends, everything is at stake because of my friends. I gotta go back. … Yoda, I gotta leave, whatever… I gotta leave.” [Laughs]
EW: We hear George Lucas is fully retired now, but has he been around the set at all—or is he not a presence on this one?
AD: I haven’t seen him. I don’t know.
EW: You have a lot of different projects going. Did the reshuffling of the schedule to compensate for Harrison Ford’s on-set injury cause you havoc?
AD: Oh no, I just stay there a little bit longer. I don’t start anything next until mid-November, end of December, November time.
EW: You’re shooting the next season of Girls in New York at the same time you’re working on Star Wars, which shoots at Pinewood Studios outside of London. How is that commute working out?
AD: I’ll be here [in New York] for a week and then leave for a week and then come back. It’s very much back and forth. Sometimes I’ll be there for two weeks. Sometimes I’ll be here for two weeks. When I’m not there, I’m here basically, doing both at the same time.
Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.
Born on April 24, 1980.
I really think he can make a badass sith/inquisitor.
I like interviews like this because the actors are talking about the characters more then the special effects. We can all argue practical vs CGI, but if we don’t care for the new generation characters, then the ST will never be great.
Yet another PT dissing article. As if the prequels had no practical effects at all.
Lol. No mention of the PT there. Got your panties in a bunch? Come on, name one character with a major point who is well conceived than Jar Jar Binks.
Watto
Did anyone notice his comment about siblings and betrayal? I wonder if he’s dropping us a line with that. Maybe not. We’ll see.
Agree with Hard Case – He might inadvertently be giving away some plot info there if you read between the lines.
He is more than likely just referring to the themes of the OT but I thought it was worth noting just in case.