Star Wars: Rose Tico Actress Couldn’t See Force Awakens While Working On The Last Jedi

It looks like we might have underestimated how far in advance the current Star Wars trilogy was planned. When Kelly Marie Tran was cast as The Last Jedi's Rose Tico in November 2015, it was a month before The Force Awakens hit cinemas. Since the actress was expecting to work with some of the prior film's characters, she was allowed to read the script of The Last Jedi in advance, but she wasn't allowed to see The Force Awakens yet.

During an interview with io9, Marie Tran discussed how she had a hard time understanding what The Last Jedi had planned since she hadn't seen The Force Awakens. Director Rian Johnson did try to explain Finn, Poe, and Rey to her, which she later appreciated.

"They didn't let me see [the movie], so Rian kind of gave me a breakdown of, ‘This is Rey, This is Finn. This is Poe.' Which is such a weird thing, right? So weird. Bizarre. And then I read the script and he didn't really give me any preconceived notions of what this character was, which I think was great because he kind of wanted me to be able to read it unbiased. Uninfluenced by what he thought."

The fact that she was able to read the script of The Last Jedi in advance is interesting. That was two years ago, so only a select few would have been given access to it. Still, the fact that she had to get to know these characters through the script alone must have been difficult, given the lack of context at the time. Marie Tran did appreciate how well crafted the script was though, mentioning how she eventually seeing The Force Awakens reinforced how great it was.

"The fact that there were all these different sorts of storylines, and then the way that they intertwined, and kind of separate, and how every character has something that they're dealing with. I thinkseeing The Force Awakens after only reiterated how great that script was,if that makes any sense. Because then I was like, ‘Oh, that's why this is happening.' Or, ‘That's what that means...' But yeah, what a weird experience."

Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters this month on December 15.

Read:Star Wars: The Last Jedi 'Meet Rose' Featurette Gives Behind-the-Scenes Look at The Film