‘Skeleton Crew’: Jude Law Raises More Questions About His Character, Teases Playful-Yet-Serious Tone
Perhaps one of the most mysterious Star Wars projects coming down the pipeline is the new series Skeleton Crew, co-created by Jon Watts and Chris Ford. The project was first announced a year ago, and after going through six months of principal photography, we finally started to get some hints during Star Wars Celebration London 2023. Now, Empire Magazine has revealed some additional details through a series of interviews with members of the cast and crew as part of their 20-page coverage on the Star Wars franchise, featured in the Summer 2023 issue that hits the stands on May 11. (Hat tip to r/StarWarsLeaks.)
The series is led by Jude Law, who finds himself in charge of a group of four kids lost in outer space. Ford talked about how this is an ideal situation for the kids who, much like Luke Skywalker, were dreaming about flying out of their home planet. But they will soon start to regret having felt that way:
“But overall, they’re all kids who are looking for an adventure. To them their planet is normal, and they want more, but that’s notalways a good thing to want.
The way Kathy explained Amblin to us was that they never thought of those as kids’ movies. They just happened to have kids. So all the stakes are as real as possible: the kids think they’re in Andor.”
And while Skeleton Crew may seem like a fun adventure for the entire family, as it’s starring a group of four kids, it can get quite serious and scary at points. Jude Law felt the responsibility to remind everyone around him on set about this by acting all serious all of the sudden:
“I’d get all serious and they’d be looking around thinking, ‘Uh-oh, is Jude in a bad mood?’” But it was setting the tone: ‘This is really serious. We’re at risk.’ Of course, what’s wonderful about children is they believe.”
Law is playing a mysterious Force user in the series (whether he’s a Jedi remains to be confirmed), but with Han Solo being his favorite character, he also wanted to throw a bit of Han DNA in the mix:
“I hope so! What I wanted to imbue was the humour and the sardonic nature of Solo. The slight tone of, ‘Aw, this is all rubbish. What am I doing here?’ I think that’s a very Star Wars thing, the lovely irony that someone in it is a little throwaway about the whole thing.”
And much like Han, he can be a conflicted character at times, walking the line between what he should do and what he wants to do, which could potentially put the kids in danger from time to time:
“They need guidance, but they’re vulnerable. And so throughout, the people they meet, you question all of them. Is my character nice? Is he not? You just want them to be alright and get back home. But if you know Jon and Chris’ work, you’ll know that the kids aren’t always safe.”
More answers will be coming in due time. For now, the focus of the Lucasfilm marketing machine is set on Ahsoka, which premieres on Disney Plus in August. Skeleton Crew is supposed to be next, sometime in late 2023. We will surely get more details as we get into the summer and then as we start to leave Ahsoka behind.
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.
