Adam Driver Won't Return to 'Star Wars' Universe, Calls Filming Them 'Exhausting'
Before he earned Oscar nominations for his roles in movies like BlacKkKlansman and Marriage Story, Adam Driver was known to many as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Ren died in the final film, 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and while characters in the Star Wars universe have come back from the dead before, Driver says it isn't going to happen, at least not with him involved.
Driver reflected on his years working on the Star Wars franchise in a recent appearance on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett's podcast SmartLess. A new Star Wars film set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker is in the works, but Driver won't be a part of it.
"They’re doing stuff, but not with me," he said. "I’m not doing any more." He confirmed that he's done with the films simply because Ren is dead. It was a taxing experience for him doing The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, though he admitted it wasn't entirely others' doing.
"Star Wars was way more exhausting for me," he confessed. "I made it more exhausting than it should have been because I hadn’t quite figured out the momentum of a set that was that big before. All the things I had worked on were pretty small and moved pretty fast."
"Usually the director sets the pace of the set," he continued. "I don’t like to be the person that tries to control the rhythm or pace of a set. I have to adjust. [BlacKkKlansman director] Spike Lee and [Logan Lucky director] [Steven] Soderbergh shoot really fast. For me, that’s not comfortable, but it’s their movie and their film, so I adjust to what it is they’re doing."
Related: Adam Driver Reveals the ‘Star Wars’ Scene He’ll Never Live Down
While Kylo Ren was positioned as an antagonist from the get-go, Driver pointed out in a December 2023 appearance on The Rich Eisen Show that that wasn't always the plan. He had a proposal for how his character would develop throughout the three films, but Ren's narrative evolved by the conclusion of the trilogy.
"I had an overall arc in mind that [J.J. Abrams] wanted to do," Driver said. "His idea was that [Kylo’s] journey was the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident and the most committed to the dark side. And then by the last movie, he’s the most vulnerable and weak. He wanted to start with the opposite. This character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies, he would be the most committed to the dark side."
"I tried to keep that arc in mind, regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway, because it changed while shooting. But I was still focused on that," he noted.
His career clearly hasn't suffered since appearing in Star Wars. In recent years, he's taken on iconic roles like Maurizio Gucci in House of Gucci and Enzo Ferrari in Ferrari. After back-to-back Oscar nominations at the turn of the decade, he could be in the running for a third nod thanks to Ferrari.