‘Rogue One’ Director Was ‘Nervous’ About Bringing Back This Villain

'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' director Gareth Edwards has revealed that he was "nervous" about bringing back a classic villain.

Rogue One A Star Wars Story

If you haven’t seen Rogue One yet, please be aware that this article has spoilers. 

Besides being a great prequel that fits seamlessly into the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story also brought back villain Grand Moff Tarkin.

It proved to be difficult though because the actor who originally played Tarkin, Peter Cushing, died in 1994. But technology can do wonders these days and instead of replacing the actor, the filmmakers and Disney decided to use computer graphics to replicate Cushing’s face and then used Guy Henry as a stand-in actor during physical scenes.

At first, however, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards wasn’t on board.

“We were all very nervous about it and kind of, ‘Can we do this? Is this crazy? Because we can’t get it wrong. It has to be spot on.’ And John Knoll, who pitched the original idea to [producer Kathleen Kennedy] and is also one of the geniuses at ILM was like, ‘No, no, no. We can do this, and it will be a milestone.’ So they spent a long time doing that.”

After all the convincing it took to get Edwards on board, the Rogue One director still didn’t think the actor would be sold on the idea.

“And Guy Henry was the actor…It was a big ask to ask him to come on board and say to him, ‘Ok, you’re going to do this whole big massive role. We’re going to replace you digitally, completely, with someone else’s face, and you also have to keep it totally secret and never tell anyone.’”

Stay tuned for the latest news regarding Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Source: IGN

Mae Abdulbaki

Mae Abdulbaki

Mae Abdulbaki is an entertainment journalist and Weekend Editor at Heroic Hollywood. She's a geek, a lover of words, superheroes, and all things entertainment.