THE FORCE AWAKENS: How Kylo Ren Is Responsible for the Creation of Captain Phasma

From the trailers, interviews, and images we've seen so far from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we know that Andy Serkis's Supreme Leader Snoke and Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux are villains in the new movie, but the characters of Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma are the clear standouts when it comes to the film's villains at this stage in the game. They both look like fearsome, awesome characters, and according to writer/director J.J. Abrams, Kylo Ren is actually indirectly responsible for the creation of Captain Phasma. At the film's press junket in Los Angeles yesterday, Abrams was asked which character's costume design was the toughest to crack before production began, and he responded:

Michael Kaplan, the costume designer — I cannot wait for you to see what he’s done in this movie. There are so many cool, many you have not seen at all, costumes that are extraordinary. The most difficult one was Kylo Ren. We went through I don’t know how many hundreds and probably thousands of iterations and versions, and one of the great things about that was, the costume for Captain Phasma was designed. That was actually pitched as a Kylo Ren costume originally. For story reasons it didn’t make sense and didn’t work, but we suddenly realized, ‘Oh my God, this is one of the greatest-looking costumes I’ve ever seen.’ And he, then she, became one of my favorite characters in the movie. But the design of Kylo Ren was the most difficult one and when we finally saw the mask and the beginning of that design, it was really instantly clear that was the winner.

I'd never heard that story before, and thought it was a cool piece of trivia worth singling out of the massive press conference transcription. I'll have more from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens press day for you in just a few minutes, so stay tuned.