Adam Driver explains original Star Wars plans for Kylo Ren that never came to fruition

Star Wars actor Adam Driver revealed that the original plan for Kylo Ren was for him to be fully “committed” to the dark side of the force.

The most recent Star Wars movie trilogy kickstarted the Star Wars resurgence that is now bigger than ever. While the first chapter was received well, the second movie tore fans, and the third was mostly received poorly because of major plot points and issues with writing.

However, one of the highlights of the series was Adam Driver’s portrayal of Kylo Ren, the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo. When the character is first introduced in the series, he is presented as the villain, torn between the light and dark side of the force.

In the last movie, Kylo flips the script and turns to the light, sacrificing himself to save Rey and coming to peace with his internal struggles. However, in a recent interview with Variety, Driver revealed that his redemption arc was not the initial plan for the character.

In fact, the initial trajectory that director JJ Abrams discussed with Driver was that the character would eventually fully commit to the dark side of the force.

“I had an overall arc in mind that [JJ Abrams] wanted to do,” Driver revealed to Variety. “His idea was that [Kylo’s] journey was the opposite journey 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. 

“This character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side. I tried to keep that arc in mind, regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway, because it changed while shooting. But I was still focused on that.”

However, when the final product for Rise of Skywalker was released, Kylo Ren took a very different direction.

“The last one, it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that,” Driver said. “And evolving into Ben Solo. That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning, but there was never a version where we’d see Ben Solo when I first signed up for it.”

Driver added that, despite the major changes to the character, he had already signed up to the movies and had no control over the final product and fate of Kylo Ren.

“J.J. Abrams walked me through what he wanted to do with the character, but you had to sign up and be like, ‘I’m gonna do it,’ and once I did that, I went to London to start pre-production,” Driver remembered about accepting the role. “And it’s like, ‘there’s a tiny room down the hall, you can go in there and read the script.’ And so I was reading it for the first time.”

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