Gwendoline Christie’s “Chrometrooper” Captain Phasma may be a member of the evil First Order, but everyone wants to be her. As we get closer to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Empire magazine’s latest issue revealed some new looks at the galaxy far, far away, including a photo of the character marching through an eviscerated village.
Gender certainly matters in the Star Wars universe, but it also doesn’t. On the one hand, there needs to be more representation both in front of and behind the camera, hands down. Christie, Daisy Ridley, and Lupita Nyong’o are helping in this regard. At the same time, though, the gender of Captain Phasma doesn’t make the character any less of a badass, as you can see in the new movie still below.
While Christie proclaimed during San Diego Comic-Con how important it was to have a woman underneath the Stormtrooper armor, the actress spoke about her character’s dynamic in a previous interview.
I found it to be a really interesting acting challenge, not just because of what I felt this character was representing — and it was just what I felt, and we talked about it a little bit, but it was never like a manifesto, ‘this is what it must be’ — and it was exciting to me to have that weight of responsibility taken away, of having to be a certain way as a woman, to have to be mindful in a way that isn’t always useful. To have that stripped away was very liberating, and it meant that as an actor I had to focus on other things. I had to focus on what my body was communicating and what exactly my voice is communicating.
We are less than a month away before Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters on December 18, and we’ll finally get to see just how kick ass she really is.
