The performance that made Adam Driver want to puke
Every actor has their quirks: it’s part of the job. But Adam Driver is unique among his peers in that his lack of vanity goes to extreme lengths. Through a solid combination of humility and embarrassment, Driver famously can’t watch himself on screen. Whether he’s in acclaimed performances or action films, Driver is notoriously squirmish at his film’s premieres.
One of Driver’s most challenging watches was also his breakout role. As Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Driver became the successor to the film franchise’s long list of legendary bad guys. Modelled after his maternal grandfather Anakin Skywalker, better known to the galaxy as Darth Vader, Kylo Ren had all the rage and anger of Vader but with less experience and knowledge.
In one of the most memorable moments of the film, Kylo Ren solidifies his role as the film’s biggest villain by killing off his father, Han Solo. Driver knew that the moment was coming, but the audience at the film’s premiere didn’t. That anxiety built up in Driver’s stomach until he almost lost his lunch at the film’s most emotional moment.
“I just went totally cold,” Drive claimed, recalling the fateful encounter during the premiere of The Force Awakens to The New Yorker. “I knew the scene was coming up where I had to kill Han Solo, and people were, like, hyperventilating when the title came up, and I felt like I had to puke.”
The way that Driver described the character’s upbringing was a far cry from the normal views of Han Solo and Lei Organa. “[He’s] the son of these two religious zealots who can be conceived as being committed to this religion above all else, above family,” Driver claimed.
“My plan is to go in and when the lights go down, I run,” Driver told AFP about avoiding watching himself at premieres, “then I go back, and when the lights come up, I stand up I pretend that I was there the whole time.”
“I think he’s rightly concerned that he would become conscious of himself in a way that would be harmful to his acting,” director Steven Soderbergh said. Soderbergh had previously directed Driver as a former soldier in the 2017 heist comedy Logan Lucky. Despite his squeamishness, Driver went on to star in the follow-up films in the Star Wars sequel trilogy: 2017’s The Last Jedi and 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker.
