Captain Phasma is kind of like the Boba Fett of the new “Star Wars” movies.
They’re both decked out in super cool looking armor, both are mysterious and both left viewers wanting more.
“The Last Jedi,” out Thursday, certainly delivers some great moments with Phasma — the tall, shiny silver Stormtrooper leader, courtesy of the lady behind the mask, Gwendoline Christie. But she’s not spilling any secrets.
“I really loved the mystery of Phasma,” she says. “I was so surprised by the overwhelming response to Phasma. But I loved that people really wanted to learn more. And I feel like we live in an age where there is so much information that we know everything. We see trailers and we basically see the entire film before we even sit down to watch it.”
One thing that Christie would reveal about Phasma that she found particularly interesting is “this admission of extreme violence that seems to come from deep within her.
“That is something we’re not used to seeing our female characters demonstrating in our entertainment in current society,” she says. “Convention is, in society, it’s something that’s so forbidden for women to behave with malevolence. It’s been seen as something that is not feminine, not desirable. So you will definitely see more of Phasma’s wrath.”
The British actress is making a name for herself with roles in two other unbelievably popular genre franchises. She plays Commander Lyme in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” and Brienne of Tarth in “Game of Thrones.”
Christie describes Brienne as being “a character with an overriding sense of all good with a very strong moral compass,” which is pretty different from the “Star Wars” role.
“As an actor it’s a huge gift to play the opposite of that,” she says. “It’s thrilling because you get to dip into all those fun aspects of yourself that you should really try to eradicate as a human being, of being kind of self-serving, obsessed with your own — exclusively obsessed with your own wants, needs and desires. It’s always fun to be bad.”
