Felicity Jones and Kathleen Kennedy Don't Want Focus to Be on 'Rogue One' Hero's Gender
The Force Awakens was a groundbreaking chapter in the Star Wars universe: the seventh installment was the first to feature a female lead in Daisy Ridley’s desert warrior Rey.
Rogue One, the eighth live-action film — and first standalone “Star Wars Story” — also has a woman as the central protagonist in Felicity Jones’s Rebel Alliance recruit, Jyn Erso. The female focus is a major sign of progress, and judging from the cosplayers at this weekend’s Star Wars Celebration in London, it’s making an impact. For the first time we’ve seen at a major fan event, Princess Leia is no longer the most popular women’s costume. It’s the badass Rey.
Related: The ‘Rogue One’ Cast Explains Who Their Characters Are in New 'Star Wars’ Film
The two most high-profile women behind Rogue One — star Jones and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy — are both excited about their film’s place within a larger cultural context. But at the same time they both voiced concerns about people getting too hung up on the gender factor.
“Obviously it’s absolutely fantastic, but I hope people would relate to Jyn as a person,” said Jones, who earned an Oscar nomination for playing Jane Hawking in 2014’s The Theory of Everything. “Rather than her gender being at the forefront, it will be her as a person, and as a character.”
Related: Here’s Felicity Jones Geeking Out Over the First ‘Rogue One’ Action Figure
Kennedy, who took over the reins of the studio founded by George Lucas in 2012 after producing such mega-hits as E.T. and Jurassic Park — and who regularly tops “Most Powerful Women in Hollywood” lists — said she is “very, very proud of the fact that we’ve been able to do this with Star Wars.” But, she added, “I think there’s a tendency to want to assume that the character of Jyn and the character of Rey are exactly the same. But in fact they’re both very, very different.”
Kathleen Kennedy with director Gareth Edwards (Disney / @VisionElie)
Jones addressed that same theme when one reporter on the black carpet asked about the prevalent fan theory that Rey is Jyn’s mother. After letting out a loud laugh at the question, Jones quoted her colleague Ridley: “Just because they have the same color hair, doesn’t mean they’re related.”
Kennedy also brought up the point that Rogue One is more of an ensemble than most Star Wars movies. “Jyn, even though she is the lead in Rogue One, she’s very much a part of a team and an ensemble group. So the character operates in a way that’s quite different the story we’re telling with Rey.
Related: Lucasfilm Head: Darth Vader Has a 'Very, Very Important’ Role in 'Rogue One’
"But I think it’s fantastic that we’re able to bring both men and women into these stories in a way that hopefully at some point — I think we’re nearing that — it doesn’t become something that we talk about. It’s just an accepted part of the casting process.”
Should Lucasfilm be nervous considering the loud backlash for a film opening this very weekend, the female-led reboot Ghostbusters, which has been criticized by angry (and some very sexist) fans? Then again, the presence of a female protagonist was clearly not a concern with the record-smashing Force Awakens. And Kennedy has a point: perhaps the less we talk about it, the more it will become the norm.
Rogue One opens Dec. 16. Watch the stars introduce their characters:
