Gareth Edwards reveals new details about Rogue One’s “working class” villain

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

We're just about a month-and-a-half away from the release of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY and the brand-new group of characters it will be bringing along for the ride. The first STAR WARS spin-off will follow a group of unlikely heroes who band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. One of the heads of the Death Star project is Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), an ambitious Imperial officer who will do whatever it takes to ascend in the Imperial hierarchy. While speaking with USA Today, ROGUE ONE director Gareth Edwards spilled a few details about the galaxies newest villain, including his working-class roots.

It feels like if the Empire ever have a job vacancy, they go to the Royal Shakespeare Company to headhunt people. I like the idea that Ben’s character was much more working-class and rose in the ranks through sheer force of personality and ideas.

Many of the top officers in the Empire, such as Grand Moff Tarkin, were portrayed as upper-class types and Gareth Edwards recalls Mendelsohn asking if he should adopt "a very posh English accent." Edwards shot that idea down as he preferred that Krennic, the man in charge of the advanced weapons research wing of the Imperial military, not "be a part of that boys club." Unfortunately that working-class background leads to Mendelsohn's character hitting a "brick wall in the hierarchy where they won’t let him in the club and it’s going to turn into a them-or-us situation: either Krennic or Tarkin and the others."

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY is set for a December 16, 2016 release.