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Star Wars: Oscar Isaac was so sick of dying in films he made JJ Abrams re-write The Force Awakens

'One of his issues was that he had made four movies in which he had died early on. And he was sick of dying early on'

Jack Shepherd
Thursday 31 March 2016 08:51 BST
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(Getty Images for Disney)

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Notably, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one character pulls off one miraculous escape no one can really explain: Poe Dameron.

In the film *spoilers ahead* Poe and Finn manage to escape the First Order only to be shot down, crashing onto the planet Jakku where Rey lives. We immediately have Finn pop up on screen, but Poe is believed to be dead and we don’t see him again until much, much later in the film.

Director JJ Abrams has previously revealed that Poe was supposed to die at that stage, but thankfully actor Oscar Isaac managed to talk him out of it.

“Originally Poe was going to die early on in the film, and that was the script that Oscar saw,” Abrams says in the upcoming documentary on the making of The Force Awakens.

“One of his issues was that he had made four movies in which he had died early on. And he was sick of dying early on.”

Isaac elaborates: “A week or so later, JJ wrote to me and said ‘We’ve got it figured out, Poe’s in the rest of the movie now’. And so this idea that Poe comes back was added later. Which obviously for me was incredibly exciting and fantastic, I get to live.”

Thankfully, he did live on and those Fin/Poe dreams are still alive. Meanwhile, Star Wars: Episode VIII is currently filming, with Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver saying it has a “really great script” while also comparing Abrams with director Rian Johnson.

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