'Cell 2187', in turn, references Arthur Lipsett's short film 21-87. įinn's stormtrooper code name, FN-2187, is a reference to the number of the cell in which Princess Leia was detained in the original 1977 film Star Wars.

But, then again, we went on a massive search just to see who was out there, and we kept coming back to realizing that John would be the perfect Finn. And we'd been sort of putting him on the top of our list right from the beginning. John Boyega was somebody we'd known of because of Attack the Block. Kathleen Kennedy, one of the producers of The Force Awakens, stated: Abrams intentionally looked for unknown actors, as he wanted audiences 'to meet these characters and not feel like it’s him from that thing, it’s her from that thing.' Boyega, who had impressed Abrams in his debut role in the British sci-fi film Attack the Block (2011), was invited to audition for the role of Finn, a process which lasted seven months before he was finally cast. What if he's a stormtrooper that ran away?' įor the roles of Finn and other new Star Wars characters for The Force Awakens, director J. I remember we talked about pirates and merchant marines and all this stuff, and finally Larry got pissed at all of us and he's just like, 'You guys, you're not thinking big. Colleague Michael Arndt, who prepared an early draft of The Force Awakens, said:Īnd then we were struggling to figure out who the male lead was going to be. The idea for the character, whose name during early pre-production was Sam, came from screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan.

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