Behind The Mask: A Captain Phasma Origin
Hello nerds!
Gwendoline Christie has developed quite the following after her breakout role as, arguably the greatest warrior alive in all of the 7 kingdoms, Brienne of Tarth in HBO's Game of Thrones, so fans were a bit let down after her blink and you'll miss it role in The Force Awakens.
With The Last Jedi's December release looming over us, the hype machine that is Disney is starting to churn out tantalizing photo after photo for the film, as well all the associated merchandise. Well, it's these teases that seemingly indicate Captain Phasma will get get fleshed out a bit more in the Last Jedi; allowing Christie to use her talents.
Besides the photos we've seen of a helmetless Captain Phasma, she's getting her own origin story, by way of a tie-in novel, Phasma: Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will focus on how she became such a feared and high ranking member of the First Order. Also, if you're wondering how Phasma escaped from that trash compactor, and then the Starkiller base before it exploded you may want to pick up the 4-part Marvel comic, Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Captain Phasma. Fortunately for us, both the book and comic are due out in early September, but unfortunate for Christie, she too has to wait until then to find out her character's backstory.
Speaking to IGN, Christie revealed that, surprisingly, she wasn't given the details of her character's backstory as prep work for The Last Jedi.
“I haven’t been allowed entry to it. I have been following Delilah Dawson, who I’m following on Twitter just to say, ‘Remember me? Do you think about me?”
I do, Gwendoline. I do. Christie then spoke about how she approaches characters she plays and that she and Last Jedi director, Rian Johnson, have worked up a backstory for Captain Phasma that she uses as inspiration for how to play the Captain.
“Rian and I did have long conversations about this character and who she was, and I was utterly delighted in how willing he was to listen to my ideas and really thrilled to exchange them with him and hear his,” said Christie. “He really is a master writer and director, and I think we’ve seen that in the films that he’s made but I think that we truly will see that in the depths to which he goes in The Last Jedi.
I’m hugely lucky to be classically trained with a method approach, so I do all of my work about who, for me, that character is, so I can go into that situation and everything is justified in logic and fact, like it is for us as humans. Life governs the decision-making process that becomes who we are.”
So, if she's playing a badass then she approaches it like she's a badass. Gwendoline Christie is a badass. There's no other way to put it. Let's hope we see a lot more of that badass in the Star Wars universe.
Lastly, the role of Captain Phasma is not Christie's first that is steeped in lore from other mediums and she really seems to enjoy the fact that fans can turn to other sources to revisit her characters from TV shows and films.
“It fascinates me to be involved in something that also resonates in other incarnations of books or of merchandise, whatever it is, because people are connecting with the material that’s outside just literally watching it.
They’re connecting with it in a way that’s tactile, that’s in their lives, that stimulates different parts of their brain, different part of their soul.”
Personally, as a fan of everything of Gwendoline Christie's that I've seen I know I'll be strapping on my Phasma replica helmet and settling in to watch Captain Phasma kick a little ass. I know she's a baddie, but come on. You know you want to see it as well. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters on December 15, 2017
Bonus treat: Check out the awesome covers from the Captain Phasma comic and novel.
