It was sort of a miracle that “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” ever made it to theaters after a bunch of endless script revisions and reshoots on the Gareth Edwards-directed prequel focusing on how the Rebel forces get their hands on the Death Star plans used to destroy it in “Star Wars: A New Hope.” Ultimately, things started moving into place when screenwriter Tony Gilroy was brought in to help polish the film; however, it sounds like the entire experience wasn’t terribly pleasant for most of the cast, although one actor wasn’t impacted too much by all those changes, according to them.
Speaking with Variety recently about his experience and revisting his lines, actor Mads Mikkelsen recalled the multitude of script (he says was “surprisingly unfinished”) problems “Rogue One” faced, something already noted and known, but the extent described by the actor sounds like it was much more frustrating for Felicity Jones (Jyn Erso, daughter of Mikkelsen’s Galen Erso) and Diego Luna (Cassian Andor), who played the reluctant heroes of the film. As Galen Erso’s role in the film was limited, and Mikkelsen didn’t have the same challenges with his character, the constant changes didn’t really impact his performance.
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“I don’t think they ever locked a draft. I think they kept working on it. Which was kind of livable for a character like mine. I had my mission, I knew what it was, but it was obviously tricky for the two young heroes not knowing exactly what they were carrying into a room of baggage,” Mikkelsen said of the impact of the film’s habitual script issues on himself and his co-stars.
That struggle those two actors faced by a changing script isn’t hard to believe, given that a bunch of the beach war scenes were scrapped (seen in various trailers and behind-the-scenes footage, and looked more physical exhausting than other shots) alongside other changes, as most of those scenes featured Jyn and Cassian, adding to the headaches and impact you’d imagine to their performances and overall energy to shoot those sequences, over and over and over.
Of course, Lucasfilm was so impressed with what Gilroy was able to achieve during a hectic production and reshoots (John Knoll coming up with the film’s story with Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz also being credited for their contributions to the final versio of the script alongside Gilroy), leading to the two seasons of “Andor” on Disney+, which allowed them to fully flesh out Luna’s Rebellion spy backstory and the other big players behind the war against the evil Empire, who had been hiding in plain sight.
We’re super curious to see if Lucasfilm will ever replicate the quality writing, character moments, and mature tone we saw with both “Rogue One” and “Andor,” as something like Shawn Levy‘s “Star Wars: Starfighter” is being talked-up as being allowed to be a tad more “risky” as a “standalone” romp starring Ryan Gosling.
You can view that video of Mikkelsen trying to remember his lines from various films below, leading to that exchange about “Rogue One.”
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