CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — Following in the footsteps of Daisy Ridley, Felicity Jones is the latest female lead in a new ‘Star Wars’ film – this time, the first of several planned spin-off films ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’.
The film has been surrounded in mystery to keep spoilers from the public. The secrecy went back to when Jones got cast – all she knew was she was playing “a rather extraordinary character.”
Jones plays Jyn Erso, the feisty and estranged daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the man who created the infamous Star Wars planet destroying Death Star.
She is hired by the Rebellion to find her father’s plans for the Death Star and she ends up leading a team of characters including Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), Jiang Wen (Baze Malbus) and Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) to go up against The Empire.
However, playing a lead in a ‘Star Wars’ film took some time for Jones to get her head around. “Well I think it takes a bit of a while for it to drop because immediately you get a call saying ‘We’d love you to play this part.’ And then you think ‘oh my God I’ve got to get to the gym’ you know,” she said. “I’ve got to start training really quickly and to get to the kind of level of fitness that you need for something like this. But it’s just, it is absolutely magical being on set.”
This is Jones’ first action role and to bring out her fighting spirit, she was given classes in Kung Fu. “Well I had this mantra,” she said. “I worked with this Kung Fu teacher called Master Yu Li who would constantly tell me to think like Tiger Girl, so that would be in my head before doing a fight sequence. I’d think ‘I’ve got to think like Tiger Girl for to be Tiger Girl.’ So that was a pretty useful mantra for playing someone like Jyn.”
Jones also praised her diverse cast, saying “Well I think what people love about Star Wars is that they are unconventional families. And true to that so is ‘Rogue One’ you know ultimately they absolutely adore each other and as you say they speak different languages they’re from different countries they are on paper they’re very very different but they are actually all united by this common aim and it’s in unity that they can achieve what they do.”
Although Jones wouldn’t answer specific questions about the film, including whether she meets Darth Vader, whether she is the mother of Rey from ‘Star Wars: A Force Awakens’ or whether she turns to the dark side, she would say that her character “definitely has The Force within her. The Force comes from… Actually it’s her mother’s legacy really and The Force for Jyn is more about belief and hope.”
‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ begins its international theatrical rollout from December 14.
