Disney provided me with hotel and transportation to the Star Wars Press Junket.

I really feel like Star Wars has always worked to bring diversity to the screen even in a time when most didn’t. Now that it seems to be so important to the world, the diversity in the cast is shining through. The newest addition to the Star Wars team is Kelly Marie Tran who has fought tooth and nail to even get into acting. She radiates an innocence and graciousness like no other. You can tell she is loving every second of being part of Star Wars. From her actions on the Star Wars Red Carpet to her interview with us, she’s been full of tears and laughter through it all.

During our interview she told us that she’s been trying to get into acting for seven years. She described her process as being long and hard and that she never expected to be cast as this part. The audition process took five months with the final part being a call back in full hair and makeup in London. It was only her second or third movie audition that she was “allowed” to go audition for. I find her story to be so inspirational because she never gave up and look where she is now. And she knows it. She’s decided to not take anything for granted and she’s going to be present in every moment. Then as she was telling us about how she found out that she got the role tears started rolling down her face.

“I’m, like, gonna cry right now. I had imagined this moment for so long. And… Oh my god! This is crazy. I’m sorry. I had imagined this moment for so long, and I thought that I would be, like, so ecstatic, and I’d be jumping up and down. And when it happened, I was so scared. I just was silent for a full minute. Like, I was just staring at the floor, like, oh my god! Like… I was treading water for so long, I never thought I would get to the end of the pond. Or the lake.”

Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose is now a role model to young female Asians and she’s done so much for the diversity and changing things for future generations of Star Wars fans and Kelly Marie Tran said she has thought about this a lot and feels the pressure. She said that she grew up in a world where she never saw herself in anything. She hopes that people will see her character as such an example.

She’s “someone who doesn’t necessarily belong in this world. She works in maintenance. She works behind pipes all day. She’s not a star pilot. She doesn’t have magical powers. She’s not a princess. She’s someone who is just an every woman. And, and these people that… You don’t necessarily see in these stories, but that are so crucial to… the idea of the resistance. Without these people that are fixing the ships, like, Po couldn’t go fight the First Order! So of course they’re important. But no one ever really sees them, or talks about them. They’re always just running around in the background. And if… If this character could mean anything, I really hope that… I really hope that she portrays the idea that even if you are someone who’s kind of in the background who’s not in the spotlight, who’s not a princess… you can still make a difference, and… You can still rise up to any challenge that comes to you.”

Watching her enjoy every moment of this journey from our interview to the interviews on the red carpet have been so endearing. I hope that this is just the beginning for her and that she’s cast in many more movies to come. I also can’t wait to see her in Star Wars The Last Jedi. My husband went and saw the movie last night with a friend and he said it is his favorite Star Wars to date. He said we will love it. Now I told him he has to take us ASPA. So after everyone gets some work done we’ll probably be going to see it. That is if it’s not sold out everywhere until Monday.

Disney provided me with hotel and transportation to the Star Wars The Last Jedi Press Conference.

During the Star Wars The Last Jedi Press Conference we interviewed Domhnall Gleeson who in Star Wars The Last Jedi plays General Hux. He’s also known for his role Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise. He chatted about his time on set, being in this movie and in Star Wars The Force Awakens, and about that time that he embarrased himself in front of Harrison Ford while he was swinging a light saber just for fun. Luckily that ended in taking a picture with him. So we asked him if Han Solo was his favorite Star Wars character and he very diplomatically said that he loved them all. But he did say that he was a huge Indiana Jones fan. He also admitted that he hadn’t seen Star Wars until he was considering being in Star Wars The Force Awakens.

“JJ gave me a file of the original Star Wars, and I watched it on a big screen. And that was, like, yeah. So that was like, amazing. And then, yeah, then they all became my favorites. How diplomatic is that? They’re all my favorites. Yeah, but I do love Han Solo”

I didn’t realize this but part of Star Wars The Last Jedi was filmed in Ireland. Domhnall said that he loved that they had an amazing time and that everyone got good weather.

“Ireland is my home, I think it’s the best place in the world, and I’m just happy for people to see it. It’s, like, it’s an intensely beautiful place, and they got to see it in intensely beautiful weather, which is ridiculous. That never happens”

It was difficult to find out very much from him about changes in his character or how the story was going to go. All the actors we interviewed seem to say that it’s going to explore some very dark places and he talked a little bit about his disfunctual relationship with Kylo Ren and how they battle for favor from Snoke. He may have gotten some influence to creating his character from the older movies but said he had to reach for something real to make his character more believeable. He strongly felt that he couldn’t “steal” from other performances and had to make this performance his own. The only clues he gave us about where his character is at the beginning of The Last Jedi is that his character is in a………

“much more desperate place, a much more uncomfortable place, and I think that’s a good place to put somebody like Hux. Like, speaking… Taking a step back from him and thinking objectively, you want Hux to suffer. That is what you want for somebody like that, who behaves like that, and who carries himself like that. And I liked creating somebody that that would end up being the feeling you would have for him. So we start with a place where we’re ready to see him suffer.”

I found Domhnall to be very charming and can’t wait to see him on the big screen again. It’s a good thing that showings start tonight as Star Wars The Last Jedi comes out officially December 15th.

I did have one more thing I just had to know though and that was if he had a “geek out” moment on the set of star wars.

Is there ever a moment on set where you had a geek out moment, like, oh my gosh, I’m in this.

His response:

“Oh my gosh? That’s so polite, [LAUGHTER]. I use different words. Yes, there are. There are lots of moments like that because the scale of things. Because of how much Star Wars means to people. Because just the history of it. I mean, there aren’t many, like, Harry Potter was a huge journey, and that was over, those films were over; twelve year, ten years, something like that, you know what I mean? This has been going on since…..… There are so many things which are part of growing up, which are part of people’s childhoods. Star Wars would have been the first movie that a lot of people, you know what I mean? Like all those things. There’s just something that’s a position of privilege, so loads of moments like that. Any time, without giving anything away of who I worked with on this or didn’t work with, but when you’re on set, other people have to come on set to show Ryan a costume in person, or, you know, to talk to him about something………So the days when you don’t know somebody’s gonna be in, and you’re kinda talking to Ryan about something and then Mark Hamill just stoles up in his Luke Skywalker gear, you’re like what the f- [LAUGHTER]. You’re like, oh my gosh… [LAUGHTER]. Those moments, when you’re not expecting them, and he’s there on a Star Wars set and you’re like, what are you doing in the evil place? Why are you hanging out here, and it’s like, oh he just here to see Ryan. Like, those things are kind of amazing. Those where you pinch yourself.”

 

I think after his “Oh My Gosh” he’s now one of my new favorite actors and I’m going to go watch and rent everything he’s been in. Plus, I’ve always been a fan of that wonderful Irish accent.

Disney provided hotel and transportation to LA for the Star Wars The Last Jedi Press Junket.

I remember the first time I saw Gwendoline Christie for the first time. It was at the press junket for Star Wars The Force Awakens. I saw her walk by and was amazed by her presence and had to ask someone who she was. They told me her name, and I still wasn’t sure, so they said Captain Phasma, and I was like, ok but. Then they said, she’s in Game of Thrones and I was like, oh wow she is really tall. We didn’t get to interview her at that time, but we did get to interview her this time and now I’m completely smitten with her. I watched her as she went from room to room doing interviews and all day long she was in amazing spirits. She seemed to be the most joyous person at the press junket that entire day. She can fill a room with her exuberance. She certainly filled our interview room.

As I mentioned in my interview yesterday with Laura Dern, women kick butt in the next installment of Star Wars. There is an abundance of strong female characters and they aren’t all good guys and Captain Phasma isn’t a good guy. Gwendoline Christie talked a lot about how much she loved getting to explore her character more. We might even get to learn why Captain Phasma is the way she is.

“what I loved about it is that in the world that we live in, we are met with deluge of information all of the time, and the idea of having that moment- the sort of suspension of disbelief where you have the space and are forced to wonder who is this, and who are they, I was very attracted by that.”

She also said described her character as an enigma, a bit of a mystery.

“She turns up out of nowhere; she has this very confrontational, threatening presence, and that’s sort of compounded or emphasized by what she’s wearing…… by this suit of armor which is entirely practical.”

She went on to also say that we will see more of Phasma in this film and we will see,

“her resilience, her need to fulfill an overriding sense of revenge, and we see something that we don’t commonly see in female characters which is that we see this- and it manifests itself in different ways, this violence that comes from deep within her.”

I have to remark that Gwendoline Christie is so descriptive and eloquent. Her choices in words just paint a picture of her character that almost make me want to root for Captain Phasma when I go see the movie next week. Or maybe we’ll go see the movie this weekend, I mean it does come out December 15th an all.

However, I’m not sure I can completely root for someone that is going to try and kill Finn. That’s not cool!

And that brings me to her conversation about training. I’ve already mentioned that she was in Game of Thrones, so of course she’s had some combat training. Well, that and she was in the previous movie, The Force Awakens as well. So working hard isn’t new to her. Her work on Star Wars The Last Jedi brought her back with her original trainer and she loves how he pushes her to do more.

“You know, he’s the person that helped to give me the courage in the first place, to say you can do more than you ever thought, physically, and to do it with a great deal of humor, and charm, and humanity. And he’s a man always sort of without ego, as well. I mean, what an amazing, an amazing teacher, and to be reunited with him, and he’s also so brilliant about how he puts things together, and how they evolve about pushing you further, and in terms of your strength. “

I think the one thing we need to remember is that Captain Phasma is “a person, she’s a person” even if she has the “need to eradicate”, “to hurt”, “to be ultimate”, “to destroy”. She is a “woman with a destructive force when women are seen as mothers” and it’s that complexity that seems to make Gwendoline giddy. She laughed a lot during the interview and really seems to love the complexity of her character Phasma. She said, “that fascinated me, and I felt like the opportunities were limitless.”

In a recent interview with Geoffrey Rush for Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales he shared quite a bit about Johnny Depp. This interview does contain some spoilers, so read at your own risk and find out what Geoffrey Rush thinks about Johnny Depp.

What do you think of Johnny Depp?

Johnny was the king of the independent films here, great characters like Edward Scissor Hands and What’s Eating Gilbert Great and all of the things that he did.

How Johnny created Jack Sparrow according to Rush

For him to create such a unique, unpredictable pirate — there’s nothing like it in literature or cinema before. And he got nominated for a Best Actor, which is just fantastic, you know. ‘Cause that — these actual adventure films just don’t really get a look in on that territory. But I remember him telling me when we shot the first film, he said, you know, we’ve gotta — we can’t be stereotypes. We’ve gotta create really imaginative kind of people that an audience will get very engaged with.

And he said I’ve been toying with the idea of, you know, I like the British rock stars of the ‘60s ’cause the, you know, the pirates always had sort of clear-cut identities.

How was working with Johnny Depp? [SPOILER]

We always — you know, the scripts are always pretty good. They know — the relationship is — we’ve sort of decided now that the black pearl is our mutual girlfriend and we both want her, you know. Then chances are that Jack Sparrow will end up with the ship, which he does in his — but that sense of harmony’s never always gonna stay there I think that, you know, if there is any kind of sequel. I don’t know. I’m dead. Again.

Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales is now in theaters.

As part of the Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales press junket we interviewed Brenton Thwaites.

Australian Brenton Thwaites, who had impressed the filmmakers in such films as “The Giver” and “Son of a Gun,” was awarded the role of Henry, the young Royal Navy sailor who is on a vigorous quest to help save a father he has barely known from a terrible fate.

Sitting with Brenton you can tell that he’s new to all of this fame. He was very modest, a little shy and of course very good looking. He gave short answers to the questions but he seemed to really love becoming part of this fun franchise known as Pirates of the Caribbean. One of the questions we were dying to know the answer to was what he thought it was like working with Johnny Depp. And he said it was very scary. ‘’

It was terrifying

We asked him if he could elaborate a little bit on that because it’s really hard to imagine what Jonny Depp is really like in person. I mean I can imagine the intimidation factor because of how famous he is.

It’s always terrifying because you never know what he’s gonna say or do. It always results in humiliation for me. You are always, entering a scene, you know, thinking this guy now is five movies worth of Jack Sparrow. And he’s on the ball and you know, kind of irreverent and impulsive, you know. He kind of- you just anticipate what he’s gonna do and say, so that’s great because, you know, as an actor, it kind of improves your acting in the sense that you’re always open and free and relaxed to go with the flow, but also pretty terrifying.

We also wanted to know how he got the role and what it was like fitting himself into the storyline. He is the son of Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner. He began by telling us that he had to audition and re-audition quite a few times. The movie was put on hold and then he had to audition again and finally landed the role. As far as becoming part of the story. He said it helped him actually…..

I feel as though as it was kind of easier than not having them because they provided such a backstory for my character. You know, we, we start the movie, Dead Men Tell No Tales with the boy version in my character, basically saying, you know, I believe there’s a treasure that can break your curse, and I can spend more time with you. And he says, okay, well if there is, go find Jack Sparrow. He can help you find it. And so I feel like the goal and obligation for my character has already been set, and that, that kind of gives Henry a, a lot more drive and focus for the whole movie.

A lot of times when you work on movies the directors let you either ad-lib or value an actors input. We asked Brenton if he felt valued and if his opinion mattered during the movie making process and he said yes. The “old-school-dudes” did value his opinion.

You know, I think they did value my input as an actor- as an newcomer. There were so many different characters coming into this one to make it a fresh new thing, you know, and I think all the old-school dudes really wanted, you know, make it fresh and exciting and, you know, it’s something they hadn’t done before. So Javier coming on board, myself, Kaya, and the two new directors who- that primarily done independent films were kind of, you know, supported and encouraged on this one.

Since I often take the pictures during these interviews, I hardly ever ask a question. I’m so nervous that maybe I missed an answer while taking the pictures and I’d hate to waist anyone’s time with that because these interviews go by so quickly. However, with Brenton, I realized I wanted to know something about the movie. I wanted to know what the locations were like. Pirates of the Caribbean has the most amazing locations. My family and I actually visited one of the locations for one of the older Pirates movies in San Juan. So I asked him what he thought about the many locations he filmed at.

We shot at about five or six different locations; mainly the studios. I was talking about Saint Martins Square twenty minutes west of the studios where all the mud was. We shot there for a good month and a half, and we shot in Northern New South Wales; they had a beautiful beach- both Hastings Point for our entrance into, our entrance into Saint Martins, I think, you know, the coastal element.

And my favorite location was up on Hamilton Island, shooting out on the Great Barrier Reef. We had some days we shot at a beach called White Haven Beach which is beautiful squeaky beach. You know, when you walk on the sand, it squeaks which is not so good for the sound, but it’s great for effect, and it looks beautiful, and I think we had the most fun right there.

Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell no Tales is beautifully made and has an amazing story. You can now see it in theaters.