We
have heard her - "I have lived long enough to see the same eyes in
different people. I see your eyes. I know your eyes." - in the first TV spot for J.J. Abrams' Star Wars:
The Force Awakens, and apparently we have seen her as well. "That's Maz",
says the filmmaker, highlighting Lupita Nyong'o's character in the poster.
Maz
Kanata is one of the new additions to the franchise, and don't let her petit
and somewhat frail look fool you, she holds in her eyes a significant amount of
power.
"I had some
specific ideas about how she would work and what she would do," Abrams
says. "I had this pitch about these goggles that she wore. Her eyes are an
important aspect of her character, and you’ll see how it plays out."
Could Maz somehow see
the Force? Can she shoot lightning's out of her eyeballs? We don't know, and the
Academy Award winning actress wouldn't go into details, which is not to say
that she didn't talk about it. "As an actor for films, your eyes are a lot of the way you
communicate anyway," says Nyong’o. "So it was definitely a gift to
have that be the means to her magic as a motion-capture character."
Though
Nyong’o clammed-up on her character, Abrams opened up his mystery box a little
and revealed that Maz' "was a
pirate for a long time," he says. "She’s lived over a thousand years.
She’s had this watering hole for about a century, and it’s like another bar
that you’d find in a corner of the Star Wars universe."
Living for over a thousand years in
the Star Wars universe means, she witnessed plenty, but it also means she is
older than Yoda at the time of his physical death at age 900. So where does she
come from? Are there more like her?
"All that backstory will be
forthcoming," Abrams says. "In the movie, you don’t learn these
things, but I know that these are things that are coming out in other venues,"
i.e. books, comics, and games.
Practical effects, sets, props, and
creatures were some of the things Lucasfilm and Abrams wanted to put back into
Star Wars, however it seems that because of what was required from her, a
choice was made, and she had to be done in CGI.
"I wanted to do the creature as
a puppet originally, but once we figured out the things that she was required
to do, it felt like [performance capture] was the way to go," Abrams said
before adding that "Maz needed
to look and feel and be just like one of those creatures. And given her
mobility, and given the role that she played, it became clear that that was one
creature where we should use the tool of CG," he says. "But the
performance was all Lupita. She was there on set, and we did capture sessions
afterwards as well, and I can’t say enough about working with her."
In addition to being a newcomer to the Star Wars
galaxy, Nyong'o was also a padawan to performance-capture. Fortunately, the
actress had fellow cast member, and performance capture master Andy Serkis at
her side.
"The biggest advice he gave me, that was so
important to hold on to, is a motion-capture character you develop the same way
as any other. You have to understand who the character is and what makes them
who they are," she says.
As mentioned Serkis is also in the film. He plays Supreme
Leader Snoke, but more on him later.
Opening on December
18, Star Wars: The Force Awakens also stars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam
Driver, Oscar Isaac, Domnhall Gleason, Gwendoline Christie, Max von
Sydow, Andy Serkis, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Crystal Clarke,
and Pip Andersen.
Source - EW
Source - EW
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