JJ Abrams’ TV series Lost famously featured a lead character, Jack Shephard, who had originally been intended to die in the first episode of the hugely popular air-crash survival drama. Now actor Oscar Isaac has revealed the director performed a similar u-turn with ace X-wing pilot Poe Dameron, who survives the events of The Force Awakens to fly future missions, despite having been originally marked for an early grave.
Interviewed by GQ, Isaac said he was initially reluctant to take on the role of Dameron, because Abrams warned him during a meeting in Paris that the leader of Black Squadron would not make it through the first act.
“I went back home [to New York], and I thought about it,” said Isaac. “Then I wrote him and said, ‘OK. I’ll do it!’ I figured it would be a cameo: I’ll come in, do my thing, and maybe it’s actually better not to have to sign myself up for three movies.”
Then, just as the actor had resigned himself to a short-lived Star Wars career, he received an email from Abrams saying he had changed his mind. “I was like, ‘Holy shit! All right, cool.’”
Those who have seen The Force Awakens will be aware that Dameron goes missing after he and John Boyega’s Finn steal a First Order TIE Fighter and pilot it to the desert planet of Jakku. Following a crash landing, the rogue stormtrooper assumes his new friend has perished, and moves on. But Dameron reveals, when the pair are later reunited, that he was thrown clear of the wreckage.
Isaac is returning for Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII, and Dameron’s last-minute reprieve suggests he could be set to play a key role in the new trilogy. Boyega revealed, in a surprise appearance on Sunday at a screening of The Force Awakens at Brixton’s Ritzy cinema, that the new instalment will begin shooting in London – presumably once again at Pinewood studios – in a matter of weeks.
