{"id":319598,"date":"2025-10-20T22:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319598\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:09:11","slug":"ap-exclusive-adam-driver-on-jarmusch-star-wars-and-taking-risks-in-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/319598\/","title":{"rendered":"AP Exclusive: Adam Driver on Jarmusch, \u2018Star Wars\u2019 and taking risks in film"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Props, mementos and photographs adorn Adam Driver<\/a> \u2019s Brooklyn office. There\u2019s an artwork Jim Jarmusch gave him for his 40th birthday, the doll from Leos Carax\u2019s \u201cAnnette\u201d<\/a> and dozens of on-set photographs, including one of Driver and his son in the Millennium Falcon.<\/p>\n

\u201cA friend who saw all this said: \u2018Oh, so you care,\u2019\u201d Driver says, chuckling.<\/p>\n

Driver, 41, can come off as stoic but his passion for movies and, in particular, the filmmakers who make them, runs deep. In a relatively short amount of time, he\u2019s worked with a litany of one-name directors: Scorsese. Coppola. Spike. Mann. Spielberg. Jarmusch. Soderbergh.<\/p>\n

In a movie age where franchises, not filmmakers, have ruled the industry, Driver has stayed remarkably loyal to directors compelled to make personal films. He gamely followed Francis Ford Coppola into \u201cMegalopolis\u201d<\/a> and helped Michael Mann realize his decades-long passion project, \u201cFerrari.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

This fall, he co-stars in his third Jarmusch movie, the Venice prize-winner \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother.\u201d<\/a> All Jarmusch needed to do was ask, Driver says, and he was in, no matter the role.<\/p>\n

While \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d was playing at the New York Film Festival, Driver met a reporter shortly before leaving to Budapest to shoot \u201cAlone With Dawn\u201d with Ron Howard. It\u2019s a meaningful film for Driver, a former Marine. In it, he plays John Chapman, an Air Force combat controller who was killed fighting in Afghanistan in 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt deals with character and story and \u2014 just tying it with \u2018Father Mother Sister Brother\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s why I like these filmmakers so much,\u201d Driver says. \u201cThey\u2019re seemingly few and far between and are making films that feel like they were directed by a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Driver\u2019s faith in filmmakers isn\u2019t always shared by the powers that be in the industry. In a lengthy conversation that often touched on Driver\u2019s concerns about current Hollywood trends, he revealed that he and Steven Soderbergh spent two years developing a \u201cStar Wars\u201d film that was ultimately nixed by the Walt Disney Co.<\/p>\n

A \u2018Star Wars\u2019 near-miss<\/p>\n

\u201cI always was interested in doing another \u2018Star Wars,\u2019\u201d says Driver, who starred as Kylo Ren in the trilogy kicked off by \u201cThe Force Awakens.\u201d<\/a> \u201cI had been talking about doing another one since 2021. Kathleen (Kennedy) had reached out. I always said: With a great director and a great story, I\u2019d be there in a second. I loved that character and loved playing him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driver says he took a concept to Soderbergh for a film that would take place after 2019\u2019s \u201cThe Rise of Skywalker.\u201d<\/a> That movie culminated in Ren\u2019s redemption and apparent death. Driver had undertaken the trilogy with an arc in mind for Ren that inverted the journey of Darth Vader. As the trilogy evolved, it didn\u2019t play out that way. Driver felt there was unfinished business for Kylo Ren, or as he was known before turning to the Dark Side, Ben Solo.<\/p>\n

Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt outlined a story that the group then pitched to Kennedy, Lucasfilm vice president Cary Beck and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. They were interested, so the filmmakers then pulled in Scott Z. Burns<\/a> to write a script. Driver calls the result \u201cone of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,\u201d Driver says. \u201cWe took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn\u2019t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was called \u2018The Hunt for Ben Solo\u2019 and it was really cool,\u201d adds Driver. \u201cBut it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soderbergh, in a statement, said: \u201cI really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I\u2019m just sorry the fans won\u2019t get to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives for Disney and Lucasfilm declined comment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a period of transition for the feature-film operations of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d Kennedy, the longtime Lucasfilm president, is expected to step down by the end of the year. After a feature-film lull, numerous projects are in various stages of development or production including Jon Favreau\u2019s \u201cThe Mandalorian and Grogu,\u201d Shawn Levy\u2019s \u201cStarfighter\u201d with Ryan Gosling, a film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy featuring Daisy Ridley returning as Rey, a James Mangold-directed movie and a new saga helmed by Simon Kinberg.<\/p>\n

For Driver, who starred in Soderbergh\u2019s 2017 heist comedy \u201cLogan Lucky,\u201d<\/a> the decision was mystifying. Who wouldn\u2019t want to see a Soderbergh-directed \u201cStar Wars\u201d film?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to be judicial about how to spend money and be economical with it, and do it for less than most but in the same spirit of what those movies are, which is handmade and character-driven,\u201d Driver says. \u201c\u2018Empire Strikes Back\u2019 being, in my opinion, the standard of what those movies were. But he is, to me, one of my favorite directors of all time. He lives his code, lives his ethics, doesn\u2019t compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Mann and \u2018Megalopolis\u2019<\/p>\n

Driver is reportedly attached to a pair of films that would reunite him with filmmakers he feels similarly about: Carax (\u201cAnnette\u201d) and Mann. Mann\u2019s \u201cHeat 2\u201d recently moved from Warner Bros. to Amazon MGM\u2019s United Artists after Warner Bros. balked at the film\u2019s cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching filmmakers not get the money they need is frustrating,\u201d Driver says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m a value add. But I\u2019m always down for the cause because I love those filmmakers and their films. I\u2019d rather do a Michael Mann anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFerrari,\u201d which starred Driver as Enzo Ferrari, was Mann\u2019s first feature in eight years. It cost $95 million to make, but struggled at the box office, grossing $43.6 million worldwide. Coppola\u2019s \u201cMegalopolis\u201d was even pricier, at $120 million, but Coppola paid for it himself. To Driver, Coppola\u2019s audacious sense of experimentation is what moviemaking is all about, and what\u2019s missing from most filmmakers half Coppola\u2019s age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gesture of paying that much money for a film and him having the trust that an audience would go with him \u2014 or that he didn\u2019t care, that this is how he wanted to do it \u2014 that to me is moving,\u201d Driver says. \u201cMaybe people don\u2019t like them or they\u2019re not ready for them. Maybe it\u2019s boring to some, but it wasn\u2019t boring making it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of its reception, \u201cMegalopolis\u201d has had a long-lasting effect on Driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like, in a way, you couldn\u2019t go wrong with character because there was nothing that you could do that was a mistake,\u201d he says. \u201cThat feeling, I\u2019m like: How do I apply this to everything else? How do I take that feeling of what it felt like, that I can go anywhere and it\u2019s not wrong, and apply it to something that\u2019s a Jim Jarmusch movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Jarmusch triptych<\/p>\n

\u201cFather Mother Sister Brother,\u201d which Mubi will release Dec. 24 in theaters, is a triptych about adult children and their parents. The film\u2019s first chapter features Driver and Mayim Bialik as siblings visiting their hermetic father (Tom Waits). It\u2019s Driver\u2019s third film with Jarmusch, following \u201cPatterson\u201d (2016) and \u201cThe Dead Don\u2019t Die\u201d (2019). <\/p>\n

Driver is notoriously against watching the films he\u2019s in, so he hasn\u2019t watched Jarmusch\u2019s film. But Driver has made some exceptions lately. He watched \u201cFerrari.\u201d He watched 2023\u2019s \u201c65.\u201d He watched \u201cMegalopolis\u201d numerous times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to get over it, and I can\u2019t,\u201d Driver says, laughing. \u201cWe just did \u2018Paper Tiger,\u2019 this James Gray film, and he seems to be close to having a cut of it. And I just don\u2019t want to watch it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to look at my face,\u201d he continues. \u201cI don\u2019t want to live with the regret of making a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to chalk this up to the kind of thing actors \u2014 a strange breed \u2014 do. But it hints at what makes Driver a singularly intense, unrestrained screen presence (even on \u201cSNL\u201d<\/a> ) and a staunch advocate for boundary-pushing filmmakers. Think too much about the audience, and you can lose sight of the things \u2014 character, filmmakers with vision \u2014 that drive movies. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you conscious of what an audience is watching and I want to retreat more and more into what\u2019s going on internally for someone,\u201d says Driver. \u201cMore than ever, I don\u2019t want to concern myself with what\u2019s happening externally. I don\u2019t know if I even understand what character is. People behave outside of character all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always like thinking that you can leave at any moment, that no one is holding characters to be in this room, only a script.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Props, mementos and photographs adorn Adam Driver \u2019s Brooklyn office. There\u2019s an artwork Jim…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":319599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[76148,160304,160303,160305,171,160310,32729,57,160307,154834,56553,160309,160301,160302,160306,75932,53,405,403,80161,23898,160299,160311,126064,160300,58211,160308,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-319598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-adam-driver","9":"tag-ben-solo","10":"tag-daisy-ridley","11":"tag-dave-filoni","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-enzo-ferrari","14":"tag-francis-ford-coppola","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-james-gray","17":"tag-james-mangold","18":"tag-jim-jarmusch","19":"tag-john-chapman","20":"tag-jon-favreau","21":"tag-leos-carax","22":"tag-mayim-bialik","23":"tag-michael-mann","24":"tag-movies","25":"tag-new-york","26":"tag-new-york-city","27":"tag-ron-howard","28":"tag-ryan-gosling","29":"tag-scott-burns","30":"tag-sharmeen-obaid-chinoy","31":"tag-shawn-levy","32":"tag-simon-kinberg","33":"tag-steven-soderbergh","34":"tag-tom-waits","35":"tag-u-s-news","36":"tag-united-states","37":"tag-unitedstates","38":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115408782535188410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}