Script security is a big deal these days. HBO apparently keeps the scripts for Game of Thrones under lock and key, and Disney/Lucasfilm is no different. Now that he’s read the script for Star Wars: Episode IX, Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux) told the hosts of MTV’s Happy Sad Confused Podcast just how nervous he is. “The nightmare is you wake up on a plane and someone’s dictating. You wake up and your mouth is shaping words. You wake up and you’re like, ‘Skywalker did this’.”
"And then you realise you don’t know how long you’ve been speaking. And there’s a kid filming, there’s somebody writing down. And because you’re in the air, you say, ‘We need to have a talk before we land – I can access my bank account’."
He’s right to be paranoid, because Star Wars fans can and will take every errant phrase he utters and read too deeply into it. Speaking of: “Skywalker did this.” An example Gleeson plucked off the top of his head, or a clue as to what’s coming? Is “Skywalker” going to perturb General Hux in the final installment of the sequel trilogy? And which Skywalker? Luke died in the final act of The Last Jedi, so anything he does in Episode IX will have to be as a Force ghost.
On top of that, people ask Gleeson about Episode IX everywhere he goes, even at completely unrelated events, like the premiere of Gothic horror film The Little Stranger, where he has the lead role.
"Last night at the The Little Stranger premiere, somebody asked me about Star Wars [Episode IX] and I used the word ‘epic’…[T]he guy was telling me that basically, the only thing that has been reported today from the screening of Little Stranger last night was the fact that ‘idiot’ Gleeson described Star Wars as ‘epic.’ I thought, ‘If there’s a word you can use to describe every Star Wars movie, it’s ‘epic’, so I think I’m in safe territory there…’ So, it’s hard to describe it!"
“Epic” should indeed be on the list of words Episode IX cast members are safely allowed to use in interviews, but we’re not in charge of internet decorum; no one is. Anyway, we hope Gleeson has his strategy in place, because he’ll surely receive plenty more questions about Episode IX between now and when the movie premieres in December of 2019.
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h/t RTE