Star Wars: Adam Driver invented a backstory for Kylo Ren: “His childhood sucked”

Back before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker landed in theaters, The Magicians author Lev Grossman sat down for a massive Vanity Fair with the cast and crew, previewing the soon-to-be blockbuster film. But not everything the cast told Grossman made it into the final article. He left out one key piece of information given to him by Kylo Ren himself, Adam Driver.

Speaking to Inverse, Grossman says that Driver put an extensive amount of time into developing Ren’s backstory, and while none of what he came up made it into the movies, Driver kept it in the back of his head and let it drive his performance. Basically, Driver doesn’t think Kylo Ren had a very happy childhood:

"He said that both Han Solo and Leia were way too self-absorbed and into this idea of themselves as heroes to really be attentive parents in the way a young and tender Kylo Ren really needed. There wasn’t really that much of it in the movie so I just think we have to assume his childhood sucked."

Given the angsty vibes Kylo Ren gave off the entire trilogy, not to mention the whole thing where he murdered his father, these comments track. If your parents ignore you, you might go looking for guidance elsewhere, including from Supreme Leader Snoke.

If you ask me, it was a misstep not to include some of this material in the movies themselves, and Grossman agrees. “I think probably the thing that was missing for me, I wanted to see more about Kylo’s childhood. I thought they would go back to show us more about why he turned to the dark side.” True, the movies had a lot of plot to get through, but a few comments here or there, either from Ren or his parents, could have gone a long way.

You can currently stream The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+.

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h/t IndieWire