Tete-a-tete with Adam Driver

Ever see Chewbacca play ping pong? Adam Driver did. In fact, the actor was the one instrumental in setting up a ping pong table on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. “I got a table for base camp. It was fun to see Chewy play with Poe — or any combination for that matter — any character on set playing the game in costume,” begins Driver. 

The 35-year-old first rose to fame playing Adam Sackler in the series Girls, following which he went on to play supporting roles in films like Lincoln, While We Were Young, and BlacKkKlansman this year, 
which earned him a nomination at the Golden Globes. But Driver owes his acting experience to TV. “I have learned in doing a TV show, that the best way to go into something is to have no idea. Then I am always somewhat pleasantly surprised. I love being in unknown situations and I’m open to surprises.”

Driver starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens first as Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke’s disciple and the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia.

Speaking of how his role is different this time around, Driver says, “It’s just a different mode. It felt like one giant marathon until it was over. Then Rian (Johnson, the director) and I decided what worked and what didn’t.”

Before he was bitten by the acting bug, Driver used to serve in the  military. Did he draw from that experience to play Kylo, we wonder. “There’s something obviously  militant about Kylo that makes sense — how he responds to things is probably a bit physically quicker — as if he was at war. In this movie, there is a lot of fighting. So obviously, the military applies.

There are things that I took away from the military that were not so literal —  like the relationships that I formed, the camaraderie, and working as a team,” Driver signs off. 

Driver’s roller coaster life  
Adam Driver attended the University of Indianapolis (for a year) and then transferred to study drama at Juilliard in New York, graduating in 2009. He began acting in plays, appearing on Broadway, before being cast in Lena Dunham’s series Girls (2012), as her character’s love interest, Adam Sackler.