Cameron Monaghan Explains Cal’s Journey in ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’, Talks Live-Action Possibilities
On the heels of the release of the first full trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Cal Kestis himself, Cameron Monaghan, spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the new game and weighed in on the possibility of following up his story on Disney Plus. What follows is a collection of some of the highlights from their conversation, but make sure to click on the link to read the full piece.
First, Monaghan revealed that the intention of making another Jedi game was there from the moment they wrapped production on the first one:
“We always had aspirations to do more. So after we finished the first, I had talked to a few people in the ensuing months. We had a wrap party and talked a little bit — like, ‘What would we want to do if we did a second one?’ It was all just dependent on what the reaction of it was and how we did. But it felt like everyone was already prepping from the start with hopes that we would be able to do more.”
He went on to explain who is joining the cast this time around:
“Debora Wilson is coming back. We have a new character named Bode Akuna being played by Noshir Dalal, who is wonderful. He is a new ally to Cal, and they have a really great dynamic. They’re like brothers in arms who have similar trajectories in their life and have up to this point made some different decisions along the way, but I think they have a mutual respect and understanding for each other. Noshir did an incredible job with his performance and has some pretty show-stopping scenes, so I can’t wait for people to see what he does.”
Monaghan then explained some of the burning questions that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will answer about the character of Cal:
“Who does his hair? Where does he get his ponchos? Yeah, there was a lot of stuff we wanted to explore with the character specifically. I wanted to see what it looked like for Cal as he aged, and what a number of years of fighting in a desperate situation would look like for the character. How does that change his worldview? How does that change the way he interacts with people? How does it affect his decision-making? These were all questions we started kicking around while we were making the first [game], and then to be able to explore a mature story with Cal — one I would say is more challenging, darker.”
With the story picking up five years after the end of Fallen Order, we might find a different Cal at the beginning of the game. Here’s what Monaghan said we should know about the character at the start:
“What’s important to know contextually is not just about Cal but about the world around him, which is that the Empire has grown stronger. There are very few footholds of Resistance left, and the situation is increasingly more desperate and dark. So we’re putting Cal into circumstances that are challenging to the point of even being hopeless. Trying to find that fight, and how you’re supposed to fight within a seemingly hopeless situation, is an interesting question we wanted to launch into immediately. I think most of the story speaks for itself, and even if you’re not familiar with the first game, you could easily jump into this one and catch up quickly.”
Jedi: Survivor will also place new villains in Cal’s way. Monaghan touched on their place in the story and explained what they mean for Cal’s character arc in the game:
“First of all, you need your antagonist to have reflections of the main character and their struggle and what they’re trying to accomplish. They need to have goals that in some way either reflect or conflict with each other. With our story, we have adversaries who really do push Cal to his absolute limit — not only physically or psychologically, but ethically. We have challenges that are really difficult for Cal to contend with. And we have complexity with the villain’s motivation. I’m a really big fan of what we’ve done with the darkness and the villain side of it.”
When asked about the possibilities of playing the character in a live-action project, Monaghan played it safe with his answer:
“I love this character. They’re starting to explore him through other mediums — we have a novel coming up. It’s been really amazing doing it within the video game space because I think games are vastly under-explored and underutilized, and are only really getting their due in this moment — people are looking at games and seeing they’re incredible and moving and significant. So my priority right now is to make sure we have a satisfying arc within the games. What happens or where Star Wars wants to go from there is anybody’s guess, but I can say I love Cal and it’s been a joy finding him over the past few years. So we’ll see.”
A rumor by Kristian Harloff mentioned earlier this year that the actor had already been signed for his own Disney Plus series, though we haven’t had more specifics since. It’s possible that, if true, Lucasfilm is waiting to see how the second game performs next year with players and fans to seek further development of that potential series. Besides The Mandalorian season 4, we don’t know which new live-action series will be going into production next year (The Acolyte and Andor season 2 are currently filming).
Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor will be released on March 17, 2023, for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
