For every Boba Fett, there’s always a Jar Jar Binks. That’s the kind of character Alan Tudyk wanted to avoid creating in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, according to sources at The Huffington Post.
Hatred for Jar Jar ignited the moment he opened his mouth in The Phantom Menace. Director JJ Abrams even joked about putting an Easter egg in his Star Wars: The Force Awakens – the bones of Binks. Alas, he didn’t.
Tudyk, who plays new Droid K-2SO had this to say about the Jar Jar legacy:
“[Jar Jar] was such an outlier ― not an outlier, an anomaly in the world ― that was backed away from as quickly as they could.”
Knowing that Rogue One would essentially be a war movie, Tudyk strived for a balance between comedy and drama:
“I did have it in mind because K-2SO can be very funny in moments, and I talked to [director] Gareth Edwards, saying, I hope I’m not coming across as a character that makes jokes, that he is a sarcastic character or a passive-aggressive character or an honest character that can be funny within a moment, especially these moments of high-stakes life and death, which this movie has a lot of ― you know, it’a a war movie. He told me that I wasn’t, so I trusted him, and I’m really happy with the outcome.”
Rogue One is stand-on-its-own Star Wars movie that fills in the blanks featured in the opening crawl of A New Hope. The story centers around a cavalcade of Rebels who hatch a plan to steal the Death Star’s blueprints.
Joining Tudyk in the cast are Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Ben Mendelsohn, Forrest Whitaker, Diego Luna, and the wheezing baritone of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader.
Gareth Edwards directs from a screenplay written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy.
Disney’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits theaters this Friday. Tickets are available now
