‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’: Andy Serkis Talks Supreme Leader Snoke

One new Star Wars character that fans have been particularly interested in unearthing is Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke.

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Like Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of ThronesStar Wars fans know nothing. J.J. Abrams, in conjunction with Disney and Lucasfilm, has done an amazing job of keeping The Force Awakens tightly under wraps. This secret keeping has extended to the specific plot of the film as well as some major characters.

One character that fans have been particularly interested in unearthing is Andy Serkis’ Supreme Leader Snoke. We know that Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is the primary antagonist in The Force Awakens. But Snoke, the leader of The First Order, may be the Big Bad pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Yet fans still haven’t gotten a glimpse of his character, though Serkis admits that’s because his appearance is constantly evolving.

“When we first started working on it, he [Abrams] had some rough notions of how Snoke was gonna look, but it really hadn’t been fully-formed and it almost came out of discussion and performance.”

Snoke has gone through a few different iterations throughout production, so any leaked concept art you might have seen could be completely different from the final product.

“We shot on set of course, and I was in the scenes I have with other actors, but the beauty of this process is you can go back and reiterate, keep informing and honing beats and moments. So J.J., after we shot last year, we’ve had a series of sessions where I’d be in London at The Imaginarium, my studio, while he’s been directing from L.A., and we’ve literally been creating further additions and iterations to the character. That’s been fascinating. And in the meantime I’ve been able to see the look and design of the character grow and change as the performances change. So it’s been really exciting in that respect.”

But who, exactly, is Snoke? What is his role in The Force Awakens? What are his motivations? Serkis obviously didn’t spill the beans on his character, but he did offer a few very interesting tidbits.

“Supreme Leader Snoke is quite an enigmatic character, and strangely vulnerable at the same time as being quite powerful. Obviously he has a huge agenda. He has suffered a lot of damage. As I said, there is a strange vulnerability to him, which belies his true agenda, I suppose.”

Was this damage Snoke suffered doled out during the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi? Could Snoke be a high-ranking member of the previous regime who jump started The First Order after the deaths of Darth Vader and the Emperor? We need answers!

“No, he’s a new character in this universe. It is very much a newly-introduced character. He’s aware of what’s going on, in the respect that he has been around and is aware of prior events. I think it’d be fair to say that he is aware of the past to a great degree.”

Well, there you have it. Snoke is, essentially, still a mystery. Hopefully, we’ll get the answers when Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters on Dec. 18.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Heroic Staff

Heroic Staff

Heroic Special Activities Division Agent Trainee Program