by Edward Gross
DAISY RIDLEY
(actress, “Rey”)
I actually did it that way as well. I did the prequels and then the original films; I was born in ’92. I have no idea what I did [to get the role], I just tried very hard, and I hoped very much. There wasn’t so much advice, there was a conversation with Harrison about anonymity and some things with Carrie, but it was more people leading by example. So, it was just amazing for me to see people so established with a huge career be kind and generous to everyone on set.
OSCAR ISAAC
Being cast in it, you kind of have to pretend almost that it’s not a big deal. You almost diminish it a little bit for yourself, but then you just can’t fake it anymore. You get out there in front of the fans and it becomes almost a religious experience.
ADAM DRIVER
(actor, “Kylo Ren”)
I remember early on I did not think of Kylo being bad or evil or a villain, and tried to make something that was more three-dimensional, because that to me, when we were talking originally, seemed more dangerous and more unpredictable—someone who feels morally justified in doing whatever they need to, to publicly state that what they’re doing is right. Seems kind of more active to play than just being evil for the sake of it. That’s not really fun to play, I guess.
LAWRENCE KASDAN
That’s why we were so excited about Adam playing this part, because there’s never been a character like Kylo in Star Wars. He hasn’t got his shit all together. And Adam acts it so beautifully, because what you’re looking at is—you expect, “Oh, this is some evil genius,” you know, but what you’re getting is all the contradictions and the conflicts that people feel—any one of us can feel at any moment. That’s what’s so amazing, and I think that’s what’s unique about what Adam has done.
LUPITA NYONG’O
(actress, “Maz Kanata”)
Fortunately for me, J.J. had me be a part of principal photography, so my very first experience with motion-capture was on the actual sets with the actual actors. So I’m eternally grateful to him for giving me that, because it was a great way to get into this wonderful, crazy thing called motion-capture. I got to be on those sets and see those things and feel them, and the art direction in this—there’s so much detail! Even when you’re standing on that set, it’s mesmerizing. For me, playing a motion-capture character was something completely new to me. Walking into a room—I had to do this thing where they had to take my picture from all directions at one time, and I had to stand in the middle, and there were 360 cameras all around me, and that freaked me out.
J.J. ABRAMS
People have said to me, “I don’t understand—you cast someone who is so beautiful as Lupita, and then you had her be a motion-capture character?” And I think, “Would it be okay if she were ugly?”
TODD FISHER
Carrie was basically going to come back to play Leia because it was like a reunion to her, and because Mark and Harrison were going to do it. In fact, when they were negotiating the deal, everybody got equal, because Harrison negotiated the financial deal first, so it allowed everybody to say, “I’ll just take what he’s getting.” There weren’t a whole lot of secondary negotiations going on. I was Carrie’s date to the screening of The Force Awakens and people were just screaming. It was crazy. And this was right about when Carrie started to think, “Maybe there’s something to this Princess Leia thing and me.” Prior to that, she really hadn’t embraced it throughout those years of the connection people had with the character. During the “quiet period,” she still didn’t really understand it for sure. It wasn’t until the Disney era that she did and when we were watching the movie, each time she, Harrison, or Mark appeared, two thousand people just roared. I knew immediately that that’s what they want from the franchise. It was like a soap opera where the characters come back from the dead. That was when we were like, “This is just never going to end.”
* * *
One aspect of the original trilogy that Abrams wanted to get back to was to work in as much in the way of physical effects as would be possible without relying entirely on CGI. In many ways, it allowed for more of a connection between director and actors. The decision was also made that production would switch back to film rather than shooting digitally, which Lucas had heralded during the prequel trilogy.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY
Disney was always incredibly supportive of whatever format we chose, and shooting on film was something we decided right up front. It’s something J.J. wanted to do; it’s something director of photography Dan Mindel wanted to do; and we did the same thing, almost identically, on Episode VIII.
J.J. ABRAMS
Many of the innovations that we used were often steps backwards, using tangible tactile physical effects, where we could have used digital postproduction effects. What’s incredible is that the technology that has progressed in physical effects is extraordinary.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY
One of the things that was so important to J.J. was that everything feel real. Part of that is having grown up with something that you felt was so real, and then when you get to 2015, you look at it and go, “Oh, you can kind of tell that’s plywood.” [laughs] So we have to step back and ask, What does “real” mean anymore? And how do you recapture a feeling when the execution has to be updated? That was a very interesting challenge. Even to the extent of looking at the actual plans of the Millennium Falcon … there were certain things we had to take inspiration from and then do differently, but anyone who knew the Millennium Falcon would not question that when Han Solo walks back inside that ship, you are, in fact, in the Millennium Falcon. And when Harrison [Ford] walked into it, he looked around and said, “Oh, my God, it looks better than I remember!” That was an interesting, constant conversation with everybody in the art department, and it also affected the way everything was photographed and lit. [Employing] all of that new technology, and yet finding that familiarity and authenticity again, ended up to be more challenging than we thought.
MARK HAMILL
Here’s the thing that I love: This is the first of the Star Wars films that’s actually in the hands of someone who grew out of fandom, so he feels the way you feel in terms of wanting practical effects and real sets.
LAWRENCE KASDAN
I think the challenge had more to do with Jedi and the continuation of IV, V, and VI. This is VII. We were aware, we were respectful of the canon, but we really wanted to tell a story that interested us and delighted us, and we didn’t really want any rules and parameters, particularly. We said we could do anything we want with this story—what would be the most fun thing to do on this page and the next page and the page after that? That was the guiding principle, more than the canon or anything that had come before.
J.J. ABRAMS
As this was developed, a lot of names came and went, and some names stuck. I remember when we wrote down “BB-8,” it was the first and only name that droid ever had, but we called him BB-8 and still do. Rey and Finn and Poe went through many iterations. Kylo Ren was Kylo Ren fairly early on, and there was sort of backstory, and Maz Kanata I think was always Maz Kanata.
LAWRENCE KASDAN
As far as influences, all the movies of Akira Kurosawa have influenced me throughout my career. That’s because he was sort of the Shakespeare of cinema. He did comedies, he did action films, he did Shakespearean drama, and all of life is contained in each one of his films. Seven Samurai may be the greatest film ever made. It’s a personal drama, it’s an action picture. So when J.J. and I were working, we kept referring to that.
And then we would talk about the great American movies that we loved, things that had influenced the first Star Wars: Howard Hawks, John Ford, all the Flash Gordons. When George made A New Hope, he was influenced very much by Kurosawa and by Flash Gordon and by Wizard of Oz. I think that all those movies, you can feel them in A New Hope, and everything that was in A New Hope has come down through the movies, to this day.
J.J. ABRAMS
JOHN BOYEGA
Every day you had a new set that’s actually there. Obviously, we’re using practical effects and it’s insane to be in the Star Wars universe. This is the closest I’m ever going to be to being a real space traveler, and it’s kind of insane to be a part of that.
J.J. ABRAMS
Part of it was location shooting, making sure that we were on actual sets and builds and locations wherever possible. The ability to shoot actual locations—in Abu Dhabi, or in the forests of Wales, or on [Skellig Michael] in Ireland, or getting plates in Iceland—was enormous. And part of it was embracing and encouraging the unexpected. Whether it’s atmosphere or natural light, it’s embracing the things that you sometimes desperately try to re-create in post, where you can spend a lot of time trying to make something that nature is often giving you for free.
DAISY RIDLEY
To be in Ireland was very exciting. The approach to Skellig was unlike anything I’d ever seen. First of all, I’d never been in a helicopter before, and it’s just unbelievable. The pilot was like, “Someone’s paid off the man upstairs,” because the weather was stunning. It’s just one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. But it’s tough—those steps were many. But it’s weird, people are like, “Ooh, did you have to walk up those stairs a lot?” Colin, our incredible Steadicam operator, was walking backwards up the stairs with like, a hundred-pound camera. The whole thing was pretty awe-inspiring. And I was sick on the last day, so I was kind of feeling a bit awful. But it kind of helped with the emotion.
* * *
Back in April 2015, one of the true highlights of the Star Wars Celebration held in Anaheim, California, was the unveiling of the second teaser trailer for The Force Awakens. Everyone involved with the film admits that they were nervous before it was screened, and that they were blown away by the response that it received, not only from the gathered fans, but from online viewers from around the world.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY
The second teaser is probably one of the more nerve-wracking things we had to do, because we put something out that begins to represent the movie we’re making and we don’t know exactly what the reaction is going to be.
J.J. ABRAMS
Here’s the thing: I was holding my breath for what felt like weeks leading up to our second teaser. When it was over, the sound that came from that space was almost a physical thing that I felt we were being pushed over with. It was incredible and I am so grateful that everyone was there.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY
We had reached a point where we could share something like this with twenty-three countries at the same time. You want to have them all in the room with you at once, but to be able to get a sense of how this is playing—and we looked at some of the fan reactions online—is really incredible. And it’s incredible that we can connect people in that way, and Star Wars does that on a level that almost nothing else does. And then there was the escalation of screaming in that moment when Harrison says, “Chewie, we’re home.” The place just went absolutely insane.
OSCAR ISAAC
Everyone was breathing like one organism. We were all just on pins and needles. It was almost like a religious experience. It brought me to tears. My heart was just thumping, but not out of nervousness. Just out of the energy of the place.
SIMON KINBERG
There was an immense amount of relief and joy, because everything that Lucasfilm is doing, whether it’s Episode VII, the animated show Rebels, or the stand-alone movie I was writing and producing, it’s all made with a very genuine love for the material. Much more than anything else I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked in lots of different universes. With the Lucasfilm group, called the Story Group, the people that work most closely on building the movies from the ground up, there is an immense amount of love and reverence for Star Wars. So unveiling the first real material to the most hardcore fans was nerve-wracking for everybody.
JOHN BOYEGA
As a group, with Star Wars fans there is always a feeling of hope and it’s something that we saw there. Everyone just had a feeling of, “Star Wars is back.”
OSCAR ISAAC
Mark Hamill said it best when he called it “family.” It really does feel like we’re part of a huge family. And it is about family, ultimately. The stories are about family. There’s that Luke moment in Return of the Jedi where your father, who’s this godlike thing and intimidating, is someone that you suddenly realize is just a vulnerable man. So I think the biggest thing about these movies is that it connects to the feeling of family.
DAISY RIDLEY
And finding your place within the world. When Luke starts out, he has no idea where he’s going to end up, and because of what he does, he becomes this kind of reverential man in the universe. And it feels like that for us, I guess.
JOHN BOYEGA
The best sci-fi has a fantastic human story wrapped around in things like Force-sensitive Sith and Jedi, but it’s something cool that everyone can relate to.
DAISY RIDLEY
* * *
The thing in life, which is sad, is that it’s usually a bad thing that unites people. So to be part of something amazing that unites people of all ages, genders, races, all languages … it feels incredible to be a part of that.
* * *
As to the story of The Force Awakens itself, Abrams’s working method as a writer/director is to continue changing the story throughout filming and post, often radically reworking the original narrative in the process. In the case of Episode VII, the final narrative was not solidified until just before the film’s release in December 2015. The end result was a story that was radically different than the one they started with.
RAY MORTON
In the initial Abrams/Kasdan drafts, the story reportedly began with scavenger Rey discovering Luke Skywalker’s old lightsaber—the one he lost when Vader chopped off his hand in the climax of The Empire Strikes Back. This blue-bladed lightsaber was last seen tumbling down into the airshaft beneath Cloud City, presumably to be ejected out of a vent and into the gas void of Bespin. The early scripts of TFA reveal that the saber has been floating around in space for the past three decades, still attached to Luke’s severed hand (yes, you read that right), until it lands on Jakku, where it is found by Rey. After realizing what she has found, Rey and ex-stormtrooper Finn set out to return the saber to Luke. They start by seeking out Han Solo, who has returned to smuggling and has to be persuaded to accompany them on their quest to find Luke. Their search brings them into contact with Leia and the Resistance and brings them to the attention of Kylo Ren, who is determined to find Luke and kill him. In the end, after much Star Wars-ing, Rey finally meets Luke and returns his lightsaber to him, which will hopefully inspire him to return to save the galaxy in the next movie.
In the movie as finally released, it is not the discovery of Luke’s lightsaber that sets the journey in motion, but Rey crossing paths with BB-8 that gets things rolling. She bumps into Han accidentally and comes across Luke’s lightsaber in the middle of the movie, also accidentally. There is no active search for Luke, just a lot of running around trying to avoid being captured and killed by Ren. In the end, Rey finally finds Luke in a brief coda, after being given his location by a previously comatose R2, who just happens to wake up at the end of the movie and give Rey a map to Luke’s location.
* * *
Abrams’s habit of reworking-on-the-fly created a number
of story-related problems: there’s seemingly an entire trilogy missing between the original series and this one: at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Emperor is dead and the Empire has been defeated; Han and Leia become a couple; and Luke becomes a Jedi. At the start of The Force Awakens, a new fascist entity called the First Order appears to be ruling the galaxy. There’s a new evil ruler who calls himself Supreme Leader Snoke. Han and Leia have had a child and have broken up. Han and Leia’s child has turned evil. Luke has failed as a Jedi and gone into hiding.
RAY MORTON
Rey and Finn just happen to stumble across the Falcon, which just happens to be parked in a junkyard on Jakku. Despite being parked in the junkyard for what appears to be a very long time, the Falcon just happens to be in perfect working condition. Soon after fleeing Jakku in the Falcon, Rey and Finn just happen to bump into Han and Chewie almost immediately—once again, the Star Wars galaxy just seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Han takes Rey to Maz’s bar, where Luke’s lightsaber just happens to be stored (it is never explained how it got there). And, luckily, it just happens to have some sort of magic attraction to Rey that convinces Maz to turn it over to her. In the end, Rey does not find Luke as the result of any searching efforts on her part, but because R2, who knows where Luke is but has been inexplicably comatose throughout the film, just happens to wake up and provide Rey with Luke’s location. R2 does not wake up as the result of any action or effort by the other characters in the movie, but simply—it seems—because it’s the end of the movie.