Brought to life by Game of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie, Captain Phasma quickly became a fan-favorite following her unveiling in The Force Awakens, when the Star Wars community affectionately christened her character as the “Chrome Trooper.” A badass title for a badass character, if we do say so ourselves, even if Christie’s First Order Commander didn’t get an awful lot of screentime in J.J. Abrams’ franchise revival.
Fans can take solace though in the fact that Captain Phasma will be back, back, back for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and not only will she return, but apparently, she’ll get in on a lot of the action this time around. At least, that’s according to director Rian Johnson, who spoke with Entertainment Weekly as part of the outlet’s Star Wars blowout this week and had the following to say:
“Gwendoline Christie is one of my favorite people, and you get to see her in action which I think is going to be really fun. That character is just so damn cool looking. Like, okay, let’s see what we can do with her. Let’s put her in action and see what happens.”
While that’s certainly exciting to hear, there’s another reason that Phasma fans are eagerly anticipating The Last Jedi as well, and that’s because the sequel is set to explore her backstory a bit more. Speaking in a separate interview a few weeks back, Christie touched base on that, saying:
“Rian and I did have long conversations about this character and who she was, and I was utterly delighted in how willing he was to listen to my ideas and really thrilled to exchange them with him and hear his. He really is a master writer and director, and I think we’ve seen that in the films that he’s made but I think that we truly will see that in the depths to which he goes in The Last Jedi.”
Directed by Rian Johnson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is expected to take flight on December 15th. Other projects gestating in that iconic galaxy far, far away include an untitled Han Solo origin story – helmed by Ron Howard, it’s on course to hit theatres on May 25th, 2018 – and Star Wars: Episode IX, the Colin Trevorrow-directed sequel that will herald the latest (and final?) chapter in the Skywalker saga come 2019.
