“THERE’S DEFINITELY SOMETHING psychotic
about Snoke,” muses Andy Serkis, human avatar
for the galaxy’s most malignant fi gure. “There
are no limitations to the force he’ll use to
achieve his aims, but I think he also enjoys it.
He’s a perfect, self-adoring, narcissistic leader.”
He is also The Last Jedi’s biggest mystery.
Seen as a towering hologram in The Force
Awakens, Snoke will make his corporeal
debut in Episode VIII. A striking contrast to
the Emperor of old, Snoke isn’t one for sinister
black robes, preferring an altogether more
eye-catching combo of gaudy gold-leaf
kimono and matching papal slippers. After all,
if you’re going to subjugate millions of worlds
under your despotic rule, you might as well
look good doing it. In this case, however, clothes
do not maketh the man.
“Snoke is bloody dark; way darker than
Palpatine,” says Serkis. “He’s riddled with this
osteoporosis so his body’s twisted, like a
corkscrew. He’s incredibly damaged, so there’s
a bizarre vulnerability about him. Beneath that
vulnerability, though, is this intense hatred.”
Over the past three years Serkis has
defl ected a hundred crackpot theories about
Snoke’s origins, greeting each one with the
same stoical smile. Is he Anakin’s birth father?
Darth Plagueis the wise? The twisted remains of
Palapatine himself? Serkis, who turned up to
this year’s Comic-Con wearing a “Your Snoke
Theory Sucks!” badge, waves all of them off.
“He’s defi nitely not a Sith, but he’s certainly
at the darker end of the Force. Without giving
too much away, that begins to unfold a little
in this one. The First Order has got unlimited
resources and power to destroy, and we see
Snoke honing what he does with the darkness
in the Force.”
With Kylo Ren now entirely his creature
(“Snoke manipulates him against Hux as a way
of tightening the screws — there’s a real cruelty
to his paternalism”) and the Resistance on the
run, the Supreme Leader’s plans are fi nally
coming to fruition. Snoke ’em if you got ’em.ALL PALATIAL CASINOS and
impeccably dressed patrons, the city
of Canto Bight is the embodiment of
Star Wars luxury. But beneath the
Mandalorian cocktails and wampa-
skin snoods lies a seedier side, one
the average punter never sees. The
Cantonican underworld harbours
criminality of every stripe, from
thieves to killers, smugglers and
pimps: all those who operate in the
margins between the light side and
the dark. Benicio Del Toro’s DJ is
one such character, a cyber-criminal
who plies his services for anyone
willing to bend the rules — and with
the credits to pay for them.
“This character could come
straight out of a Bob Dylan or Tom
Waits song, or even a Dostoyevsky
novel,” says Del Toro. “He’s like
something out of Dickens; there
have been characters like him
in all kinds of literature.”
Dressed head-to-toe in black,
with a weathered trench coat,thigh-strapped blaster and
tight-fi tting hat, DJ radiates a
grimy, unsavoury feel appropriate
to his surroundings. He’s the kind
of fi gure that wouldn’t look out
of place pushing death sticks
outside Mos Eisley starport. He’s
not, however, anything nearly
so straightforward. A thief and
a scoundrel, DJ is a rogue in the
great Star Wars tradition and, as
an expert slicer — Star Wars’
equivalent of a hacker — he
happens to be the most effi cient
codebreaker in the galaxy. A useful
ally to have, especially if, like Finn
and Rose, you plan to infi ltrate
a First Order base. The question
is, can they trust him?
“He’s a shady character, but
it all depends how you approach
him,” says Del Toro with a toothy
grin. “He’s like a knife: if you grab
him by the blade, he’ll cut you. If
you grab him by the handle, he
can be very, very useful.”ARMITAGE HUX, SALLOW-skinned General
of the First Order, is the closest thing going to
a human sneer. Contempt simmers beneath his
every look and Empire is feeling the full effect as
we put questions to an unusually frosty Domhnall
Gleeson. It’s quickly becoming awkward until,
halfway through a question about First Order
politics, the penny fi nally drops.
“I’ve made an absolute balls of this!” he
breaks in, looking sheepish. “I’m really sorry, dude,
I thought we were here to talk about Goodbye
Christopher Robin. I’ve been sitting here waiting
for you to ask about Winnie The Pooh.”
And like that Hux melts away, replaced by
a far more affable Gleeson, now all too happy
to discuss the character Empire felt like we just
encountered fi rst-hand.
“My fascination with Hux was creating one of
those characters a child would hate,” he explains.
“They’d want bad stuff to happen to that guy
because he seems like a dick. Now, you can’t play
the character as a dick all the time — that would
be a mistake. But I defi nitely wanted a kid
watching it to say, ‘I want that guy to get hurt!’
There’s a real joy to playing that out.”
Hux’s meticulous offi cer is the buttoned-
down Yin to Kylo Ren’s live-wire Yang — the
Rabbit to Ren’s Tigger, if you will. And now,
with the First Order’s most expensive toy
a smouldering wreck, Hux has been recalled
for the mother of all bollockings from Supreme
Leader Snoke.
“Because of what happened in the fi rst fi lm,
he’s been pushed to a place where his position
is in real jeopardy, and people make really bad
decisions when they get desperate,” Gleeson
says. “Hux and Kylo Ren are vying for power and
for Snoke’s attention. They’re both contenders
for the throne and Hux is hoping Ren explodes, so
that he can take up the mantle. He knows it will
be a battle otherwise, one he may very well lose.”
Just wait until Piglet fi nds out.STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI IS IN CINEMAS
FROM 14 DECEMBER