The highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens is just a few weeks away from hitting theatres and Adam Driver (who plays Kylo Ren, Dark Vader’s successor) opens up about how making the big-budget sequel wasn’t all that different from serving in the U.S. Marines.
“It’s a group of strangers forced to be intimate in a short amount of time. A group of people trying to accomplish a mission greater than themselves,”; Driver, 32, tells Empire. “It’s not about you. You have to know your role within a team and there’s someone who’s leading it and, if you’re lucky, they know what they’re doing.”;
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Driver, who also stars in the HBO series Girls, tells the magazine how his time in the Marines was cut short due to a mountain-biking accident. It was then he realized how precious life was and wanted to “pursue acting very aggressively.”;
As for his biggest challenge on set of the upcoming flick, Driver says it’s playing a character who’s constantly wearing a mask.
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Empire
“Playing someone who’s masked, your body plays such a role in what you’re trying to play. What was so powerful in the original trilogy is that even though [Darth Vader] was behind a mask you could always feel [him] thinking,”; Driver says.
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Check out the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer below that focuses primarily on Driver’s character: