J.J. Abrams Wanted General Hux to be Merciless in Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
Total Film spoke with Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson about his role as First Order General Hux in The Force Awakens, and managed to get some interesting tidbits about his character…
From Total Film (via GamesRadar):
“Yeah, I mean you look at him and you realise he’s not a good guy! He’s got an English accent so he can’t be good.” He said. Gleeson went on to add that Abrams described Hux as “merciless”, before getting worried he was giving too much away, “Is that what he said?”.
You might think that the chance to be a part of the new Star Wars film would be a dream come true, but although Gleeson is definitely excited, he explained that’s not why he took the part. “Yeah, it’s fun to do different things. I hadn’t played anybody like that before. Star Wars is amazing, J.J. Abrams is amazing, but the thing to do was play something different. That’s what got me really excited.”
Having said that, it’s easy to see how much of a fan Gleeson is when he describes stepping onto the set for the first time. “That does sort of take your breath way,” he grins. “That’s one of those ‘pinch me’ moments. I experienced it in a major way on Harry Potter and it’s a similar thing with Star Wars, except you look down and you’re in the gear and you have stuff to say and you’re like, ‘Holy God.’ And yes, it’s very difficult to remain cool about stuff like that. There’s no two ways about it, it’s totally brilliant.”
You can read the full interview with Gleeson on Total Film’s November issue, already on sale.
Founder of SWNN, MNN and The Cantina forums.
Born on April 24, 1980.
i think hux is gonna be really cool
“British actor Domhnall Gleeson”
Don’t say that in front of him. Gleeson is IRISH, not British.
Maybe that’s how he became ruthless 😉
The irish are british m8
Only the ones from Northern Ireland.
If I understand it correctly, Ireland is one of the British Isles, so they’re not wrong. However, if they said he was ‘English,’ that would be far more problematic. 🙂
Well, you don’t understand it correctly, the British Isles is a geographic term. You wouldn’t call Canadians Americans just because they live in North America. I think you need to brush up on your history guy.
Northern Irish people aren’t British. They’re from the UK but they’e not British.
British means you’re from Great Britian. Great Britain is the landmass of England, Scotland and Wales.
hence why it’s “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”
Nothern Ireland is part of the UK but not part of Great Britain.
My mistake.
I got called ‘anal’ on this site the other day when trying to explain this to someone…I was commenting on people saying Daisy Riddley has a British accent and how that didn’t really mean anything to someone from Britain
Err, no they aren’t lol
yeah but Eugenio learned something new today
Ouch! He is Irish. Not British. Very politically incorrect
Reference to an earlier post about accents:
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/09/daisy-ridley-and-john-boyegas-accents-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens.html
We can then assume that Hux has the “Coruscanti accent” or posh accent, the same as Rey. Hum,…interesting. Is there a connection? or is it purely coincidental?
Of course he’s evil. He’s got red blondish hair and blue eyes.
It’s obvious what his role will be.
Soul taker!? 😛
No. Just white. The whiter people are in movies, the more evil.
Samuel L Jackson in The Kingsmen, Denzel Washington in training day, … oh wait is just messed up your theory.
Nope. Because there are plenty of good black men in movies. Besides, they all have the same characteristics to begin with. But blondes are blondes. They’re rare even among white people. Which is why the odds of them repeatedly representing evil is more than just a coincidence.
ARE. YOU. FOR. REAL? ?
Are you?
People are in movies, it happens. The thing with white guys being the bad guy is A: exaggerated and B: not surprising due to the whole “global conquering” thing, the Nazis didn’t help either. So overall, having a white guy as the villain is most likely to strike a chord with moviegoers because A: not everyone is white or worships white people and B; White people can / should suck it up and deal with the fact that they make the best villain-material. And this is coming from a white dude who supports the war on terror in Afghanistan. So, in summation, yes, I am for real, and people tend to get cast in movies, it’s kind of the point of movies, to have people in it. Just sayin’
PS I think Malfoy is actually a brilliant metaphor on white supremism-guilt complexes, like in my top 3 of meaningful HP characters.
Isn’t the whole global conquering thing a muslim thing? Oh wait, not allowed to portray them as villains.
I portray the muslims as villains when it’s due. Putting a crescent moon on the Turkish flag is not cool as it celebrates the sacking of Constantinople. That bugs me, also the extremists blowing up shit isn’t cool either. My grandparents have got their own skeletons in the closet. To say the white race is completely innocent is historically bonkers. This is HISTORY we’re talking about: Everyone was an asshole at some point.
What matters is who is still an asshole RIGHT NOW.
I’m not gonna deny history, but our current actions are not legally bound to repeat it either.
I stand by my assessment that white guys have proven themselves as very believable evildoers in pop culture. As have the Chinese, and Japanese, and African, and basically everyone. Anyone can be a villain – but they ARE allowed to play upon cultural shorthand. Having a white guy play an imperialistic genocidal general, in the culture’s shorthand, = Nazi = Bad Guy. Thus clearing up a TON exposition-time to dedicate to more interesting things, like the mutilation of less-than-good non-humans. 🙂
Though bear in mind General Hux might NOT even be a villain, it could be an “ogres have layers” sort of deal.
I always love how white history is reduced to a 12 year period, which the vast majority of whites fought and defeated. As a German, this ticks me off even more, because before these undeniably horrible 12 years, Germany was the second most peaceful country in all of Europe (after Switzerland).
I don’t mind when movie villains are portrayed Nazi style with long leather coats, etc. What I do mind is that “genocidal nazis” and the “evil corporations” are the only type of villian you will get in any major hollywood movie anymore and they are always white and speak with a British accent.
Can you imagine a villian played by an arab, inspired by the acts and ideology of Mohammed? Or a villian inspired by black panthers trying to enact revenge for slavery? It would never happen. The one time it did happen (300) there were protests, the movie was decried as racist and the Iranians went nuts over it.
As you correctly said, history is full of assholes. Arts and entertainment shoudl reflect that.
I respect your opinion, but suffer me to add this point that you may not be taking into account:
White guys are going out of their way to NOT be assholes right now. Which means that having a white villain – while having historical significance – is currently in the realm of fiction, there’s very few people [living outside of Argentina] with a legitimate claim to be offended by neo-nazi villains.
There are, however, a ton of people that are tired of being associated with ISIS because they look “arab” – and seeing an arabic villain can easily overlap into a real-world accusation that Arab=bad.
It sounds stupid but it DOES affect how movies are made.
I know I cringe whenever they have a pseudo-christian villain who’s supposed to represent actual christians. The movie “Paul” for instance, had a bible-quoting sub-antagonist that A: I found to be pointless in the story, B: did not actually strike me as being a character with christian values, and C: was supposed to be a direct mockery of ME and my family. A bad, fumbled, 1-dimensional, pathetic attempt at mockery, that is.
Is this how Hollywood sees me? as some caveman?
From this view, I totally understand that Muslims are over-sensitive of being equated to terrorists. My brother-in-law is Arabic, and he isn’t even Muslim, he comes from a christian family, and has lived in the direct aftermath of terrorist BS his entire life. He is an expert on every single reason we should hate the terrorists. He STILL has to deal with the fact that he looks “like a terrorist” every time he buys a plane ticket.
Note how True Lies featuring Arabic villains, cancelled its sequel-plans after 9/11: It became a REAL issue.
Black/White violence is a REAL issue,
terrorism is a REAL issue.
Star Wars is fantasy. Anything un-tethered by REAL, CURRENT issues is welcomed in open arms.
White genocide of every other race has ended, it is now a moot issue, and so no one [should] be offended if they use white villains in a fantasy setting. Why not? If our apologies and attempts to make right [and we DO owe some apologies] mean anything, being the villain periodically makes sense. Then once other groups are comfortable and ready, they’ll start being villains in movies as time goes on.
Anyways, I’m off topic. I like Domnall Gleeson and Chrometooper and I’m on the fence about Kylo but Driver seems like a stand-up guy. I look forward to their villain performances.
It was a Macedonian thing, then Persian, then Roman, then Mongol, then both religions tried to conquer one little city over and over and over again, Vikings did some things, then the British, Spanish, French and Portuguese…
Oh, these were all in the name of a deity? And were by homo sapiens? Oh…I guess I should have just said homo sapiens.
Exactly. It “was” everyone’s thing. It IS only one group’s thing in this day and age.
Yep. Corporations certainly do need to dominate every market.
So when was the last time some corporate guy told you he would cut your head off, if you didn’t buy his product?
He paid the politician for that.
So he hired a skinny ginger
Wait…there’s a new Star Wars movie coming out?
Yes. George Lucas is writing/directing a new trilogy of prequel-prequel films about Qui Gon and Obi Wan. The first one comes out May 2018.
Starring Jai Courtney as Qui-Gon Jinn and Justin Bieber as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
A 32 year old general? From the oddly retro vehicle designs and this, I’m starting to think that the First Order is to the Galactic Empire what Kim Jong Un’s regime is to Nazi Germany.
Cool, hopefully we can have some articles on Mexican actor Oscar Isaac, or Norwegian actor Max von Sydow or perhaps one on Canadian actor Adam Driver.
Definitely not the last one. No one cares about Canadians because they’re not exotic enough ;(
You dont consider beady eyes and flappy heads exotic, buddy? I dont know what youre talkng aboot, friend.
I’m not your friend, pal.
I’m not your pal buddy!
I’m not your buddy, guy.
Oscar Isaac is not Mexican. He’s half Cuban and half Guatemalan.
lol, he’s making a joke. Each of those nationalities is a similar neighbour to where they are actually from.
Yeah. I missed that. LOL
Oh dear.
Whoosh. That joke went straight over your head. He as joking because the article said Gleeson was British when he is, in fact, Irish.
No joke goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it…. But yeah, I totally missed it. Oh well. LOL
Ha I see what you did there
And Max von Sydow is Swedish, and not Norwegian.
This is poor casting. This guy is just a total goofball. I don’t need to see the movie to know that his acting will be less than inspiring. Why? Because he’s motivated for the wrong reasons.
You’re an idiot. He’s a fantastic actor, go watch Ex Machina! He’ll knock it out of the park.
ty, well said.
Agreed. Gleeson was one of the actors I was really happy to see when it was announced.
It’s weird – Every Hux pic I’ve seen doesn’t actually LOOK like Gleeson (aside from the obvious ginger bit); looking forward to seeing his range as a villain!
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7dvu0CBc71rao9e3o1_500.gif
Check out his performance in Anna Karenina with Kiera Knightly.
Rey and Hux are the children of LUKE. Would be cool.
I have a feeling General Hux will die in this movie.
I think he’ll be around until he gets a cool death in episode 8 or 9, probably in a big explosion (in the Starkiller base, maybe)?
I agree. Tarkin perished in his first movie and I think hux will share a similar fate. We already have 3 villians (4 counting snoke) so one of them will definitely bite it and I think hux is thus far the least marketed of the baddies.
What if Captain Phasma isn’t really a villain?
It’s funny that the irish guy is using a british accent and the british guy is using an american accent.
being sort of the new tarkin that was obvious….
Isnt he a bit young for a general
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Napoleon led France at around 30, so… nope, not too young. As was said, desperate times. 😉
Alexander the Great as well…