While Mark Hamill dreamed up his own absurdly grim backstory for Luke Skywalker while filming The Last Jedi, his co-star Adam Driver wanted to remain in the dark.
The former Girls actor is all set to reprise as Kylo Ren, the First Order lieutenant formerly known as Ben Solo. And though his on-screen antagonist clearly has a murky history – all signs point to Kylo being Luke’s failed student, one who tore his Jedi Order asunder before fleeing to the dark side – Adam Driver recently conceded that The Last Jedi won’t spend much time exploring Kylo Ren’s harrowing origins story.
As a matter of fact, there are certain elements of Ben Solo’s upbringing that “will never be revealed…and there are no plans to,” either.
I mean, there’s like a bits of pieces that we started working on that kind of, I know are answered in this one that we kind of started in The Force Awakens, that I knew was operating you know when we were doing that one, that I knew as time went that they kind of reveal themselves but even if those things, there’s a lot of those things that will never be revealed and there are no plans to. There are things that I think about that, for me, is what makes it kind of more fun in the playing of them, you know.
There is something to be said about retaining a sense of mystery around your key characters – just look at Lucasfilm’s origin Star Wars trilogy. Neither Han Solo nor Yoda were given much exposition, and yet they still resonated with moviegoers thanks to smart storytelling and, in the case of Yoda, near-perfect practical effects.
So we welcome Rian Johnson’s decision to skate around the details when it comes to Kylo Ren – ditto for Supreme Leader Snoke – as it’ll ensure we’re still asking questions once the credits roll on The Last Jedi next Friday.
