Oscar Isaac almost passed on his role as Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The Moon Knight star revealed he was summoned by J.J. Abrams to one of the most artistic coffee shops in Paris, Café de Flore, to offer him a role. After he learned the mystery, Isaac went home feeling dissatisfied.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens went through several revisions, where some characters were meant to perish, but they didn’t. At one point, they had Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker as the main star. As the script reached its completion, another major alteration happened.
Oscar Isaac Almost Didn’t Want to Star As Poe Dameron In The Force Awakens
Oscar Isaac spoke with GQ Magazine and revealed that director J.J. Abrams, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy met with him at a Parisian café to pitch the role of Poe Dameron. Abrams gave the actor some snippets of the role:
“He’s amazing! He opens the whole movie! And then he dies.”
The filmmaker could see the passion drain from Isaac’s face, having been excited by the offer to join the Star Wars franchise. Isaac responded:
“I’d done that before. Set up the plot for the main guy and then die spectacularly.”
He was referring to Matt Damon’s The Bourne Legacy film, where he played the role of Outcome-3. Abrams, seeing the doubt on Isaac’s face, still tried to convince the actor to join the force. He said:
“I wanted to impress upon him how much I wanted this to work. We talked about the story and who this character could be. I loved the collaboration. People like Oscar are the people you listen to.”
Isaac went home with the previous conversation still replaying in his head. He figured out he wanted to do a cameo instead:
“I went back home [to New York], and I thought about it. Then I wrote him and said, ‘Okay. I’ll do it!’ I figured it would be a cameo: I’ll come in, do my thing, and maybe it’s actually better not to have to sign myself up for three movies.”
Little did the actor know, Abrams made some changes to the script and reported that Isaac would be in the entire movie from now on. The director noted that the conversation he had with Isaac at a quaint café in Paris changed the fate of Poe Dameron and even made him an integral part of the narrative.
Will Oscar Isaac Return To The Star Wars Franchise?
Poe Dameron became a fan-favorite character, and fans have been eager to know if he will return soon. Oscar Isaac previously revealed in his interview with Sirius XM that he is open to doing another Star Wars franchise as long as there’s a good script:
“I don’t know. I’m open to anything. You never know. I have no real feeling one way or another. I’m open to any good story. Time is the one thing that becomes challenging… as you get older and kids and all that. Where do [movies] fit in? If there was a great story and a great director and [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] came to me and was like, ‘I have this great idea,’ then I’m so open to it.”
With that closing statement, fans would finally be assured that the Dune star will wholeheartedly come back to the franchise once a good pitch will be readily at hand.
Star Wars films are available on Disney+.
