The following contains a spoiler for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Captain Phasma was played by 6-foot-3 blonde Gwendoline Christie (a.k.a. Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones), a character who was originally supposed to be male and rumored to have almost been played by Benedict Cumberbatch. You may have assumed her chromed-out Stormtrooper baddie met her end by taking a header into a trash compactor on Starkiller Base at the behest of Han Solo. But if Star Wars movies have taught us anything, it’s that no one is truly dead until you’ve seen their body burned entirely to cinders or riddled with blaster holes.
Christie confirmed Phasma will return in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. At Saturday’s red carpet preshow for the 2016 SAG Awards, the actress told People, “I will be in the next Star Wars movie. I think that’s an exclusive, actually.”
We shouldn’t be surprised. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy already hinted at the character’s longevity in an interview with the LA Times last month: “She’s an important character, a baddie in the best sense of the word.”
Star Wars: Episode VIII opens December 15, 2017. Now that Phasma has survived the compactor, we hope she has to fight a bear next…
Gwendoline Christie, may the Force be with you. pic.twitter.com/pMEHmyJATh
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) June 2, 2014
(Via People and Bleeding Cool)
