The abrupt twists and turns of the narrative of the last three movies in Star Wars’ The Skywalker Saga (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker) saw Kylo Ren (fka Ben Solo) take a turn toward the light. According to Adam Driver, however, that arc was not what was laid out to him when he signed up to play the character.
Driver was recently a guest on the podcast, The Rich Eisen Show (via Entertainment Weekly), where he shared that Kylo was meant to start out as “the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side.”
That grimmer arc was originally shared with him by J.J. Abrams, who directed the first film and stepped in to direct the third film when director Colin Trevorrow left after creative differences.
“I had an overall arc in mind that [Abrams] wanted to do, which, you know, then changed,” Driver said. “His idea was that [Kylo’s] journey was almost the opposite 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.”
The shift happened with the direction Rian Johnson took in The Last Jedi (a.k.a. the best film in that trilogy), which Driver said “still tracked with the character.” Driver kept Abrams’ original guidance in mind, however, and focused on that even when things changed.
“[The Rise of Skywalker] changed into being about them and the dyad and things like that—and kind of evolving into Ben Solo,” Driver added. “That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning, but it was never a version where we’d actually see Ben Solo when I first signed up.”
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