Mads Mikkelsen's 'Rogue One' Character Is Jyn Erso's Father
The Danish actor let some new details slip during a British TV interview.
It’s been under a month since the Rogue One trailer dropped and it’s been fairly quiet on the Star Wars front ever since. It takes time to make and market these things, and there cant be news everyday about what character every different actor is playing. But fortunately for excitable Star Wars fans, today is one of those days. Actor, and perpetual bad guy, Mads Mikkelsen let some key details slide during a TV interview and now we know a little more about who he’ll be playing in Rogue One.
Right now, the only new Rogue One character we know is Jyn Erso, played by Felicity “I rebel” Jones. She’s the young outlaw recruited by the Rebel Alliance to go on the suicide mission to steal the plans for the first Death Star before the events of A New Hope. The trailer also showed actor Ben Mendelsohn as an Imperial officer, Diego Luna as a dashing Rebel commander, a quarterstaff wielding Donnie Yen, and a grumpy Jedi-esque Forest Whitaker. But we don’t even know exactly who they’re playing.
Conspicuously absent from the trailer extravaganza was Mikkelsen, and though we haven’t seen him, we now know who his character is, based on his slip-up in the interview below with Sky News.
If you don’t have time to wait for a polite British lady to ask Mads Mikkelsen questions, let us run it down for you.
At first, Mikkelsen says Rogue One is “before anything you’ve ever seen in the Star Wars universe,” which is technically wrong, but it’s good to know old Mads wants to forget about the prequels like the rest of us. The Casino Royale star then elaborates a little more about being approached by director Gareth Edwards for his role, and finally says a little bit more than the execs at Lucasfilm probably wished he said:
“A little scared. I wasn’t really sure if I was wearing a Stormtrooper outfit or anything like that at that point. I wasnt sure I could fit into that. I read the script. It was very beautiful. And Felicity [Jones] is playing this lovely, strong woman, and I play her father. And that was too much. I’m sorry.”
Rogue One is the first non-episodic Star Wars movie, but it looks like it’ll at least have the whole fatherly conflict thing in common as Mikkelsen’s character is Jyn Erso’s father. But who he is has just been rumored at this point. Some reports say he’s the architect of the Death Star, which would be fascinating given Jyn’s personal connection to her mission.
See if you can figure out any more clues in our trailer breakdown as you wait patiently for Rogue One to fly into theaters on December 16.
