Richard E Grant has shared details of his first “exhilarating” day on set of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
The actor, who joins the cast for the finale of the Skywalker saga as General Pryde, said he had been a fan of the fantasy franchise since he was a 20-year-old drama student.
He told the PA news agency: “You wear a hood and a cloak going from the make up and the wardrobe department into the studio because there were drones going overhead from various people trying to spy on what was happening.
“You couldn’t read the script or take it home with you, so all that secrecy was played in and then you walk into a boardroom on a spaceship with Kylo Ren, him sitting at the table, all of these people, a traitor’s head who had been beheaded, slapped down on the table, all of that and you go ‘oooh you’re in Star Wars’ and there’s stormtroopers, it felt as real as it could be, it was absolutely exhilarating.”
Recalling when he first saw the first Star Wars film, he said: “I was absolutely blown away when I saw it the first time.
“I was 20 years old, I was a drama student in 1977 and always wanted to go into space so for me it fulfilled all those fantasies and actually being in the final one and seeing it, I was emotionally wiped out and overwhelmed by it.
“Because JJ Abrams and Chris (Terrio), the screenwriter, have brought all these stories into a finale that I think was an amazing feat to pull off, with a great emotional wallop.”
He added: “When you see it, there are things that happen, and appearances by people that you do not expect to see, that absolutely wobble you, big time, in the best possible way.”
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is out now in cinemas.
