Gwendoline Christie attends The 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 30, 2016 in Los Angeles, California (x)
What made you want to join Star Wars and play Captain Phasma? I have loved Star Wars since I was first shown it. I think I was around 6 years old when my family showed it to me and I fell in love with the film. There were so many unusual elements, things that I didn’t feel I’d seen before in other films. I remember, even at that very young age, seeing Princess Leia and being so in a state of rapture due to her strength, her wit, her determination, and thinking, ‘That’s unusual. I don’t really see women like that in the things that I watch. I like it, I like her, and I want to be like her.’ – Gwendoline Christie
Gwendoline Christie photographed by Brian Bowen Smith
Among the new cast, the most hardcore Star Wars fan was probably Gwendoline Christie. “I really was besotted with R2-D2,” she says. “There was something about that robot - I couldn’t work out why I was so attached to him.” When she heard they were making a new movie, she began answering any and all emails from her agent, on any topic, with the words, “I want to be in Star Wars.”
Gwendoline Christie by John Akehurst for Vanity Fair ( x )
Gwendoline Christie, photographed by Matt Holyoak for INTERVIEW, Dec 2015.
She started off dancing and trained in rhythmic gymnastics. “I loved it, loved the physicality of it. But then I started to grow. I was 5ft 11in at 16, and then they said I couldn’t dance any more because I was too big. It was all I wanted to do. I still love the physicality of acting. I adore the fighting, the rhythm and the movement.” – Gwendoline Christie, photographed by Liz Collins for The Sunday Times