Adam Driver On Signing to Play Kylo Ren Before Ben Solo’s Redemption Was Planned: “That Was Never a Part of It”
In a stunning move given how the last few years have played out, Adam Driver is talking about Star Wars for the second time within the past month. After talking to CNN’s Chris Wallace about the process of signing on to do The Force Awakens, Driver recently stopped by The Rich Eisen Show to talk about Kylo Ren’s arc throughout the sequel trilogy and how that kept changing with time.
Driver, who is currently out promoting Ferrari, said the following when asked if he knew he was playing “Vader 2.0”:
“I did, yeah. And I had an overall arc that in mind that [JJ 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.”
Eisen then asked when the character’s arc changed, and Driver said the following:
“With Rian, he took it in a different direction, but it still tracked with the character. And then the last one, it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that. 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.”
Driver’s comments are really not that surprising, though they are worth listening to because of how thoughtful he is about everything he does. Driver was first approached to play the main villain in the sequels around the end of 2013 or the start of 2014. At that time, JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan had been rewriting Michael Arndt’s script for Episode VII for a few months, but the studio had scrapped Arndt’s overall treatment for the sequel trilogy. In an effort to meet the 2015 release date Disney had set for the film, they decided to take it one film at a time, and let Rian Johnson figure out what to do with Episode VIII on his own.
Colin Trevorrow was signed later to do Episode IX, back when there wasn’t a fully laid out plan, but there were certainly seeds of one. The Duel of the Fates script that leaked into the Internet after The Rise of Skywalker came out did not feature Ben Solo at all, and by the time The Last Jedi wrapped filming in 2016, that was the plan for the trilogy. For Kylo Ren to go further down the dark side path. Lucasfilm later changed their mind — and they did so even before Rian Johnson’s movie came out. Trevorrow was let go, and JJ Abrams took over Episode IX, co-writing it with Chris Terrio.
So yes, this is even more confirmation that there was a lot of turmoil in the making of the sequel trilogy, and the actors suffered from it first and foremost. John Boyega is another example of this, and how the promises made to him early on were later unfulfilled. However, the British actor’s last statement on the matter left the door open for a possible return — something that seems a lot less likely for Adam Driver.
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.
