Interview with Alan Tudyk & Mads Mikkelsen from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters this Friday and I’m still thinking about the 28 minutes of footage we saw last weekend at Skywalker Ranch. While at Lucasfilm HQ, we also had the chance to interview the cast and director of Rogue One, including Alan Tudyk and Mads Mikkelsen!

Image courtesy of MomStart.com

Talking About Their Characters

Alan and Mads started off our interview telling us a little bit about each of their characters. Mads shared, “My character is called Galen Erso. I am a scientist, working closely together with Director Krennic in the film – before the film actually – working on a project that has the potential of making the world a better place, and also the potential of not doing so. I’m also the father of our hero, Jy Erso.”

Ala shared with us, “K-2SO is a droid who was formerly of the Empire, and he’s been reprogrammed by Cassian’s character, and has been working with him prior to our introduction to Jyn. He’s a soldier in the Alliance. The reprogram has caused him to be… free with his own personality, which invites some brutal honesty in moments where honesty isn’t really required and he can be funny in that way… and sarcastic, and… passive-aggressive, and all those fun things that sort of sidekicks—although they’re partners. They’re partners. He wouldn’t see himself as a sidekick.”

Almost everything we see Alan in, he’s just so funny and he revealed that he was able to ad-lib in Rogue One.

“I luckily got to ad-lib a lot. Gareth set up the set was really conducive to having fun, and playing around with the characters, and discovering how the scenes fit on the locations that we were shooting them in as opposed to saying, “Here we go, this is where you’re gonna be; you’re gonna stand here; you’re gonna move here; this is how it was” When we would get into this space, we would find the best way to bring life to the scenes, what we were given, and part of that became… just saying whatever I wanted.”

Praise for Felicity

Alan shared lots of praise for Felicity, telling us, ” Felicity… I have such huge respect for her, she was such a leader and a harder worker than anybody; never complained, which was annoying. I complained about her inability to complain… huge point of contention. You need a leader, and she’s the lead but if she had set an example of somebody who is always (complaining) then that’s what happens to a set – everybody becomes that. She wasn’t that. She was a great leader. Certainly better than I was at her age, or as of yet, I’ve never had that kind of maturity that she has, so it was a blast.”

This Is The Droid You’re Looking For

There’s so many droids that we love in Star Wars and Alan was asked if he felt pressured to make his character unique, or to match the rest of the droids. He shared, “I guess I did. I don’t remember it if I did. I just focused on the script, like any job. I did have a concern when like after a take, people would go, “Oh that was really funny” that I was going to be a Jar Jar Binks. I did talk to Gareth saying, I want to stay this side of Jar Jar, you know, I don’t want to be bigger than the movie character that’s in his own world, and he assured me that he wouldn’t allow that, he would keep me within the world as long as I was focused on it and I think we did it, so that was my concern beyond being a droid.”

Image courtesy of MomStart.com

Favorite Star Wars Characters

Of course, we had to ask them who their favorite Star Wars characters are. Mads revealed, “I think it’s, Han Solo, for me. For the simple reason that he’s not really on anybody’s side—his own side. Obviously Harrison Ford playing him charmingly, it’s just something you can relate to, so you’re not the good, or the bad, but you’re that guy who’s just there for the fun ride, and then he’ll leave you in a second if there’s no money in that, right? It’s just recognizable in a wonderful way. I like him a lot.”

Alan shared, “I like several characters…today, I like Obi Wan Kenobi. He was just great, you know, he was the one who could say, “These are not the droids you’re looking for” he had the force. He was magic. He was wise. I liked him. I like Guinness, man. That guy’s amazing.”

Challenging Locations

When asked if there were any locations that were challenging, Mads shared, “Yeah, all of them, basically. Something funny and interesting happened though. We went to Iceland for a week, we shot there, so that was my debut on the film, and my very first scene, I’m walking and walking and… I’m meeting Krennic but after five hours of walking alone, they turn up the actors and the storm troopers, and then I realize, ‘Whoa, I’m in a Star Wars film, because obviously I’ve been walking like in any film – but it’s not every day you see storm troopers…

“It was raining constantly. It was just pouring down. It was windy, chilly, and I was like, ‘God, we’re done here’ but it was such a beautiful place. I love Iceland. And we’re going back to the studio, but they came up with this brilliant idea that all the shots inside in the studio should in rain. So basically… I am wet the whole film. Those were cold and long days, but yeah. It’s worth it. It looks fantastic on film.”