Kelly Marie Tran has confirmed she’s always willing to return as Rose Tico, her character in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Introduced in The Last Jedi as a potential love interest for John Boyega’s Finn, Kelly Marie Tran sadly found herself at the heart of the movie’s controversy. Rose Tico was sidelined in The Rise of Skywalker, a creative decision from Lucasfilm that angered many given that it seemed to bow to the views of online trolls.

Speaking to CBR, Tran revealed she’s had conversations about a possible Star Wars return. “I have so much love and graтιтude for that universe and that world,” Tran explained. “[Wedding Banquet co-star] Lily [Gladstone]’s a big Star Wars fan as well. We’ve talked about it.” In response to further questioning, she confirmed that she would “absolutely” be willing to come back.

“Oh and I remain such [a Star Wars fan]. It has such a warm place in my heart, just that whole universe, and that entire experience. And I don’t know the context to which things would have to fall into place for Rose to return, but I will say that I just love that world.”

She doubled down on the comments in an interview with Variety:

“I’ve been able to learn how to celebrate the parts of myself that, at the time, I was scared of, or I was made to feel like I had to be ashamed of. This past year, I did four movies, and they were all Asian stories with Asian writer-directors, and a few of those were also queer writer-directors. I remember looking back and thinking, ‘Wow! How crazy is it the thing that I was persecuted for, I now get to make art about?'”

Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico Deserves So Much More

Kelly Marie Tran sadly found herself targeted by the dark side of the Star Wars fandom after The Last Jedi, harᴀssed online by trolls. “Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories,” she reflected in an op-ed for The New York Times back in 2018. But Tran has seen phenomenal success since, beginning with Raya the Last Dragon.

As Tran told Variety, people of color are often at “the forefront of storytelling… We live in a world where those idenтιтies have been weaponized so that people are not able to see the bigger picture,” Tran observed. “I really just want people to recognize, it’s the system that’s the problem. Stop scapegoating people of color or queer people or anyone who’s different.“

The character of Rose Tico – and, indeed, Tran herself – deserved so much better than to be sidelined in The Rise of Skywalker. Tran has given conflicting responses over the years when asked whether she’d be willing to return; she was relatively positive back in 2020, describing conditions in which she could play Rose Tico in Star Wars again. According to Tran, it would require the right story at the right time.

Daisy Ridley’s New Stars Movies Offer An Opportunity

We know Daisy Ridley is set to return to Star Wars, although it’s unclear whether this will be in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s upcoming Star Wars movie or other projects. Given that’s the case, Lucasfilm is clearly pushing on into the same time period where Rose Tico is alive, so it would be great to see more of the character. The fandom showed its worst side after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but we’ve recently seen that turn around in other cases – such as Ahmed Best’s – so this could well happen again.

Source: CBR, Variety