Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico in theStar Warssequel trilogy, has opened up about the incredibly secretive audition process. Tran made her debut as the character inThe Last Jediand would go on to reprise the role inThe Rise of Skywalkeras well. But the process of landing the role was not an easy one, per her account.
While promoting her latest movie, Disney’sRaya and the Last Dragon,Kelly Marie Tranwas asked about the process of auditioning for a Star Wars movie. For starters, she explained that lining up the audition was secretive, and preparing for the audition was complicated by the fact that they weren’t given any scenes to prepare with. Here’s what she had to say about it.
“I remember getting an email, just like you normally would for an audition, but the email said the project was ‘The Untitled Rian Johnson Project,’ which after a little bit of light Googling, it was pretty clear that he was doing Episode 8… We didn’t get sides to prepare. They wouldn’t even let you have them. So we would get to the audition and then you’d be given these sides that were printed on red paper so that you wouldn’t take them with you.”
Landing an audition for a major franchise is a big deal for an up-and-coming actor. But having to go in somewhat blind and try to win everyone over is an unenviable task. As Kelly Marie Tran further explained, they were, more or less, doing cold readings in the first audition.
“It was essentially a cold read, was the first audition. And I remember the character description said, ’20s, female, character-y,' and that was it. You didn’t really know anything about it. So yeah, it was wild. I will say, the best thing that I did was probably just try as much as possible to be present in the moment and pay attention to what the scene was about, as opposed to trying to act a genre or play to a specific universe if that makes sense.”
In the end, Kelly Marie Tran emerged victorious. She got to bringRose Ticoto life. WhileThe Last Jediwill go down in history as perhaps the most divisive entry in theStar Warsfranchise, it certainly gave her career a massive boost. Lastly, Tran did provide some sense of the scenes she was given to work with on the day.
“There were two scenes and one of them was a scene between myself and John Boyega, Finn. It’s the casino scene where we’re looking for theMaster Codebreakerand then the sort of monologue scene where Rose is talking about wanting to put her fist through this lousy, beautiful town.”
Rose was a huge part ofThe Last Jedibut was sidelined largely inThe Rise of Skywalker, getting less than two minutes of screentime. Whether or not we’ll see Rose again remains to be seen. But there are plenty ofStar Warsprojects coming down the pipeline that, in theory, could open the door for more from Kelly Marie Tran in that universe. This news comes to us viaCollider.
