Adam Driver Claims Kylo Ren’s Original Character Arc Significantly Shifted Over The Course Of Shooting The ‘Star Wars’ Sequel Trilogy

Adam Driver is revealing some previously unknown history of Kylo Ren’s original character arc. The actor, who played Kylo from 2015 to 2019, said on The Rich Eisen Show that his role transformed significantly over the course of the three films he starred in under the franchise.

Upon revealing that “there was no script to read” prior to accepting the role, he recalled that director J.J. Abrams “walked [him] through what he wanted to do with the character,” per Variety.

“But you had to sign up and be like, ‘I’m gonna do it,’ and once I did that, I went to London to start for pre-production,” he shared, claiming that he was directed to a “tiny room” where he could read the script for the first time.

Upon being asked if he was aware that he would be portraying “Vader 2.0,” Driver highlighted that he “had an overall arc in mind that [Abrams] wanted to do, which then changed.”

“His idea was that [Kylo’s] journey was the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident and the most committed to the dark side,” he said, noting that “by the last movie, he’s the most vulnerable and weak.”

“He wanted to start with the opposite,” he continued. “This character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side.”

He said that he “tried to keep that arc in mind, regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway.”

“Because it changed while shooting,” he added. “But I was still focused on that.”

Driver said that Rian Johnson, who directed The Last Jedi, “took it into a different direction,” but he clarified that it “still tracked with the character.” However, Driver pointed out that in The Rise of Skywalker, “it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that.”

“And evolving into Ben Solo,” he added. “That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning, but there was never a version where we’d see Ben Solo when I first signed up for it.”

Abrams, who directed both The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, admitted in 2022 that the lesson he learned from the three films was “to plan things as best you can.”

“And you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected,” he told Collider. “And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.”

The Star Wars films are streaming on Disney+. Watch Driver’s interview above.