Even by the standards of major franchise films, Star Wars: Episode IX will be coming into the cinemas under a fair amount of pressure to perform, faced with a divided fan base in the wake of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and following on from the commercial disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Nonetheless, in a recent interview with The Daily Beast, actor Oscar Isaac stressed that the team is still having a lot of fun in the filming process, mentioning a greater looseness to the atmosphere than he felt for the first two installments.
“There’s a looseness and an energy to the way that we’re shooting this that feels very different,” Isaac said. “It’s been really fun being back with J.J., with all of us working in a really close way. I just feel like there’s an element of almost senioritis, you know? Since everything just feels way looser and people aren’t taking it quite as seriously, but still just having a lot of fun. I think that that energy is gonna translate to a really great movie.”
These statements echo Isaac’s own from last month, when the star mentioned that the team seems more open to trying new things on set. And while the Poe Dameron actor has generally refrained from going into specifics, Isaac did let it slip a few months ago that the recently depleted Resistance will be engaging in some guerilla warfare to overthrow the First Order.
As much as Isaac has apparently enjoyed his time working on J.J. Abrams’ upcoming release, he also mentioned in his Daily Beast interview that the absence of the late Carrie Fisher can be felt on the set, and is also addressed in the film.
“The story deals with that quite a bit,” Isaac said. “It’s a strange thing to be on the set and to be speaking of Leia and having Carrie not be around. There’s definitely some pain in that.”
Though Abrams is faced with the difficult task of wrapping up Leia’s story using only pre-recorded footage of Fisher from the last two episodes, Isaac went on to say that the movie “deals with the amazing character that Carrie created in a really beautiful way.” Sounds promising, but we’ll see for ourselves if Star Wars: Episode IX can do both Leia and the wider space saga justice when the film hits theaters on December 20th, 2019.
