Star Wars’ Adam Driver reveals strained relationship with his dad allows him to tap into the dark side of Kylo Ren
STAR Wars villain Kylo Ren reveals a scarred face to match his scarred soul in the latest movie instalment — but we also find out his pecs are perfect.
Actor Adam Driver ditches his character’s mask and robe to display Poldark-style stomach muscles in The Last Jedi, a huge transformation from his less-than- buff look in previous hit Girls.
But while the 34-year-old might have had to work hard to achieve Ren’s physical appearance, Adam had far less trouble getting in touch with the knight’s dark, tormented side.
Like Ren himself, not to mention the character’s grandfather Darth Vader and uncle Luke Skywalker, Adam has struggled in his relationship with his real father.
He also endured a fractious upbringing with his deeply religious stepfather and had a troubled youth, even setting fires to give vent to his rage, before joining the US Marines.
Adam admits he still struggles with his own dark side, and this real-life torment gives a depth to his Star Wars performance that is even more attractive than those new abs.
Sun writer Sam Carlisle is one of the American’s army of female fans and explained: “Adam Driver could never be described as your textbook hunk. He’s hot because of, not in spite of, his physical drawbacks.
“And in his black Kylo Ren robes, with the weight of the galaxies on his broad shoulders, Adam is the definition of the word brooding.”
Ren’s magnetic relationship with Last Jedi heroine Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, is one reason the eighth episode of the franchise is being hailed by critics as “the best yet”.
But all the acclaim in the world will not change Adam’s dark outlook on life — and nor has the newfound global fame and fortune that accompanied his casting as Ren in 2015’s The Force Awakens.
The 6ft 3in actor revealed: “As a person, I’m the same. The problems I had before Force Awakens, it didn’t solve any of them.”
Born in California, Adam’s parents Nancy and Joe divorced when he was seven and he moved to small city Mishawaka, Indiana, with his mum.
There she married Baptist preacher Rodney Wright and by the time he was a teenager he was chafing under the religious strictness of home life.
He has been reluctant to discuss his childhood, telling one interviewer: “If I can, I’ll skip the parents stuff. We have different views on the world. They have their life, I have mine.”
He became a rebel — and a vandal, recalling escapades with pals: “We climbed radio towers, lit some things on fire. We’d buy big gallon jugs of cheap wine that would give you red teeth and a headache.”
Then after watching Brad Pitt movie Fight Club aged 16, Adam took to organised street brawling.
A self-confessed “misfit”, the teenager set his sights on an acting career, but when he applied at top New York drama school Juilliard he was rejected.
He then tried to make a go of it in Los Angeles but gave up after just two days and returned to his mother and stepfather, frustrated and angry.
They insisted he pay rent for his room so the youngster tried jobs in door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales and telemarketing but failed at both.
Finally, fed up, his stepfather threw a military recruitment leaflet at the lad, telling him to sign up.
The 17-year-old had no intention of doing any such thing — but then soon afterwards, he watched in horror as the terror attacks of 9/11 unfolded.
Months later, just after he turned 18, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and was assigned to 1/1 Weapons Company, 81’s Platoon.
He has explained: “Like a lot of people in the country did at the time, I was filled with a sense of patriotism and retribution and the desire to do something — that coupled with the fact I wasn’t doing anything.”
The actor continued: “I loved being in the Marines, it is one of the proudest things I have done in my life. Firing weapons is cool, exploding and driving expensive things is great.”
Adam was soon getting ready to head out to the Iraq War, but a mountain-biking accident brought a sudden halt to his military career.
On the way down a mountain on his bike the brakes broke as he hit a ditch and his breastbone fractured when it slammed into the handlebars.
Although he desperately tried to regain his fitness, he was medically discharged in 2004, having never seen military action. He recalled: “I was depressed for a long time after that.”
To this day, he says that the fact he was sent home rather than serving with his comrades “f***ing kills me”.
Desperate for a new challenge, he auditioned for Juilliard again and this time he got in.
He graduated in 2009 and three years later landed his role in Girls, playing the boyfriend of star and show creator Lena Dunham in a cast that also included Jemima Kirke. He picked up three Emmy nominations.
In 2013 he married actress Joanne Tucker, who he had met at Juilliard, and the following year won the part of Kylo Ren. The best thing about the role, he says, was that in The Force Awakens at least, Ren mostly wore a mask.
Admitting he loathes watching himself on screen, he said of the run-up to the 2015 release: “For a month leading up to it, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can watch this.’ Thankfully I’m masked through a lot of it, so I could kind of hide that way.
But it took a long time. I remember being sick to my stomach and almost vomiting in the theatre at the premiere.”
In The Last Jedi that mask is taken off for much of the film — revealing his character’s long facial scar.
That exposure is yet another thing for Adam to be gloomy about — but to his surprise he has found life on the Star Wars set to be the one place where it is hard to be dark and brooding between scenes.
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He explained: “On the sets, it’s pure comedy, with Stormtroopers trying to find out how to go to the bathroom and the puppets not working and giving everyone the finger, it’s hilarious.
- The Last Jedi (12A) opens tomorrow.