Trivia: FANTASTIC BEASTS Star Eddie Redmayne Auditioned For The Role of Kylo Ren

It's been nearly a year since Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, and along with Rey, Finn, and Poe, one of the instant fan favorite characters was the villainous Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver. It wasn't long before he was practically memed to death online, and the fan fiction flew fast and hard from the moment people left the theater. Driver did a great job, but in a new interview with Uproxx, we found out an interesting piece of trivia: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them star Eddie Redmayne auditioned for that same role.

You mention auditioning for the same roles as Domhnall Gleeson a lot. When you auditioned for Star Wars, did you audition for Hux?

No. So, I was going for, I think, for Adam Driver. They gave me like a Star Trek scene – or like something from Pride and Prejudice. It was one of those films. With films that top secret, they don’t give you the actual lines. So they give you a scene from Pride and Prejudice, but then they tell you you’re auditioning for the baddie. If you’re me, you then put some ridiculous voice on.

That was really a hilarious moment. Because it was [casting director] Nina Gold, who I have to thank a lot because she’s cast me in several films. And she was just sitting there and I was trying again and again with different versions of my kind of “koohh paaaah” [Darth Vader breathing sound] voice. And after like ten shots she’s like, “You got anything else?” I was like, “No.”

Sounds like he bombed that one pretty badly. I feel like Redmayne might have been able to handle the petulant aspects of Ren's character, but he couldn't have been nearly as imposing or threatening. He would have just seemed like too much of a cry baby. Driver's Ren was occasionally impetuous, but he always felt like he could do real damage at any point if he didn't control himself. I think Redmayne might have come across as too whiny and weak, which doesn't really work for someone the audience is supposed to sympathize with and be scared of in the same film.

What do you think? Would Redmayne have been a better Kylo Ren than Adam Driver?