Domhnall Gleeson Wishes STAR WARS Had Explored the Darker Side of General Hux

General Hux had the makings of a genuinely nasty Star Wars villain, but by the time the sequel trilogy wrapped up, the First Order officer had gone from dangerous fanatic to frequent punching bag. Domhnall Gleeson wishes the movies had spent a little more time digging into what was happening underneath all that anger.

Gleeson played General Armitage Hux across Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. While Hux remained an important piece of the First Order throughout the trilogy, Gleeson believes there was another side of the character that audiences never really got to see.

During a recent interview with Liv Marks-Howarth, the actor explained that he would have liked the Star Wars sequel trilogy to explore the bitterness fueling Hux, particularly in moments when the character wasn’t putting on a show for everyone around him.

“Speaking genuinely, it would have been nice to go into the real bitterness at the heart of him,” Gleeson said. “In a quiet way, just to find a couple of quiet moments with him, where it’s not performative, where the real danger of him comes across.”

That could have added an interesting dimension to Hux. The character spent much of the trilogy fighting for authority within the First Order, particularly during his increasingly hostile power struggle with Kylo Ren. As Hux was humiliated and pushed around, that resentment kept building.

Gleeson saw plenty of material there that could have been explored. He added: “A kicked dog will end up attacking someone, and he is a kicked dog by the end of that sort of stuff. So I would have loved to go into that stuff but, spoiler alert, I got shot in the chest by Richard E. Grant.”

Hux’s story eventually took a surprising turn in The Rise of Skywalker when it was revealed that he was secretly feeding information to the Resistance. He hadn’t suddenly developed sympathy for their cause. His motivation was his hatred of Kylo Ren and his desire to see his rival lose control of the First Order.

Unfortunately for Hux, his career as a Resistance spy didn’t last very long. General Pryde, played by Richard E. Grant, discovered his betrayal and promptly shot him in the chest.

Gleeson’s comments point to one of the more interesting roads the sequel trilogy could have taken with Hux. He wasn’t simply an ambitious military officer.

He was a furious, insecure man obsessed with power who was repeatedly humiliated by people above him. Giving him a few more restrained character moments could have made his eventual betrayal of Kylo Ren hit harder while showing why Hux was still dangerous even after losing much of his authority.

Hux certainly had more going on beneath the surface than the Star Wars sequels ultimately explored. Gleeson clearly had ideas about where that character could have gone, and seeing a colder, less performative version of Hux might have made him a much more unsettling villain.