Gwendoline Christie talks about playing Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Captain Phasma

In May, we got our close-up of Captain Phasma from the upcoming Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. Phasma's first look image came alone with a description that read as, "The Phasma Menace. First Order officer Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) surveys the rubble following an attack."

There's nothing that particularly telling that Phasma is female in the description, save for the reference of Gwendoline Christie playing the role. This lack of identity made the role 'liberating' for Christie and the helmet probably helped a bit with that.

According to Christie in an interview with Variety she didn't need to worry all that much about the way her face looked, but more about what she portrayed with her body.

“It was very important to J.J. that I was there acting a part,” she noted. “I found it to be a really interesting acting challenge, not just because of what I felt this character was representing — and it was just what I felt, and we talked about it a little bit, but it was never like a manifesto, ‘this is what it must be’ — and it was exciting to me to have that weight of responsibility taken away, of having to be a certain way as a woman, to have to be mindful in a way that isn’t always useful. To have that stripped away was very liberating, and it meant that as an actor I had to focus on other things. I had to focus on what my body was communicating and what exactly my voice is communicating.”

She added, “It becomes about the way in which you hold your hand, the way in which you walk, where your weight lies and what you want that to mean, and I wanted to give the character identity. I thought it was interesting to make something about the character identifiably female in a non-superficial way, and I hope that comes across.”

Christie's role as Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones helped prepare her for a the role, both roles have "an unconventional kind of woman exhibiting a kind of strength, but in a very different way to my other two characters.”

What I'm taking away from this interview is that Christie will be as great in The Force Awakens as she is in Game of Thrones.