Thandiwe Newton has revealed that she feels “disappointed” by Star Wars for killing her character in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
While reflecting on her role in the 2018 film, the 48-year-old told Inverse that she is unhappy about how her character Val was killed off, especially given that she was the first Black woman to have a major role in the franchise.
The film follows the story of Han Solo (played by Alden Ehrenreich), who becomes involved in a large-scale heist within the criminal underworld and meets individuals who change his life.
During the heist, Val’s job is to set a bomb and derail the train while the others steal the loot. At the last moment, however, Val is attacked by Imperial droids and chooses to blow herself up instead of escaping.
Newton revealed to Inverse that the decision to kill off her character had not been in the script.
“I felt disappointed by Star Wars that my character was killed. And, actually, in the script, she wasn’t killed. It happened during filming,” she said.
“It was much more just to do with the time we had to do the scenes. It’s much easier just to have me die than it is to have me fall into a vacuum of space so I can come back sometime.”
The production of Solo faced many roadblocks as the original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired from the project due to creative differences.
Director Ron Howard reshot many scenes when he came onboard the project to finish the film.
Newton explained that her character could have “come back at some point” in the film instead of being killed off.
“But when we came to filming, as far as I was concerned and was aware when it came to filming that scene, it was too huge a set-piece to create, so they just had me blow up and I’m done,” she revealed.
“But I remembered at the time thinking, ‘This is a big, big mistake’ — not because of me, not because I wanted to come back,” Newton added. “You don’t kill off the first Black woman to ever have a real role in a Star Wars movie. Like, are you f****** joking?”
Newton recently made headlines for reclaiming her birth name of Thandiwe.
As a part of a British Vogue cover story, the Westworld actor revealed that she is reclaiming the original spelling of her name and explained that all of her future films will now see her credited with her full name.
