Adam Driver on working with Jarmusch, 'Star Wars' and putting filmmakers
first
[October 21, 2025]
By JAKE COYLE
NEW YORK (AP) — Props, mementos and photographs adorn Adam Driver ’s
Brooklyn office. There’s an artwork Jim Jarmusch gave him for his 40th
birthday, the doll from Leos Carax’s “Annette” and dozens of on-set
photographs, including one of Driver and his son in the Millennium
Falcon.
“A friend who saw all this said: ‘Oh, so you care,’” Driver says,
chuckling.
Driver, 41, can come off as stoic but his passion for movies and, in
particular, the filmmakers who make them, runs deep. In a relatively
short amount of time, he’s worked with a litany of one-name directors:
Scorsese. Coppola. Spike. Mann. Spielberg. Jarmusch. Soderbergh.
In a movie age where franchises, not filmmakers, have ruled the
industry, Driver has stayed remarkably loyal to directors compelled to
make personal films. He gamely followed Francis Ford Coppola into
“Megalopolis” and helped Michael Mann realize his decades-long passion
project, “Ferrari.”
This fall, he co-stars in his third Jarmusch movie, the Venice
prize-winner “Father Mother Sister Brother.” All Jarmusch needed to do
was ask, Driver says, and he was in, no matter the role.
While “Father Mother Sister Brother” was playing at the New York Film
Festival, Driver met a reporter shortly before leaving to Budapest to
shoot “Alone at Dawn” with Ron Howard. It’s a meaningful film for
Driver, a former Marine. In it, he plays John Chapman, an Air Force
combat controller who was killed fighting in Afghanistan in 2002.
“It deals with character and story and — just tying it with ‘Father
Mother Sister Brother’ — that’s why I like these filmmakers so much,”
Driver says. “They’re seemingly few and far between and are making films
that feel like they were directed by a person.”
But Driver’s faith in filmmakers isn’t always shared by the powers that
be in the industry. In a lengthy conversation that often touched on
Driver’s concerns about current Hollywood trends, he revealed that he
and Steven Soderbergh spent two years developing a “Star Wars” film that
was ultimately nixed by the Walt Disney Co.
Driver says he took a concept to Soderbergh for a film that would take
place after 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” That movie culminated in
Kylo Ren’s redemption and apparent death. Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt
outlined a story that the group then pitched to Kennedy, Lucasfilm vice
president Cary Beck and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni.
They were interested, so the filmmakers then pulled in Scott Z. Burns to
write a script. Driver calls the result “one of the coolest (expletive)
scripts I had ever been a part of.”
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally
understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver says. “We took it
to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben
Solo was alive. And that was that.”
“It was called ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ and it was really cool,” adds
Driver. “But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”
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Actor Adam Driver appears at the premiere of the film "Marriage
Story" at the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 29,
2019. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP, File)
 Soderbergh, in a statement, said: “I
really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans
won’t get to see it.”
Representatives for Disney and Lucasfilm declined comment.
Driver is reportedly attached to a pair of films that would reunite
him with filmmakers he feels similarly about: Carax (“Annette”) and
Mann. Mann’s “Heat 2” recently moved from Warner Bros. to Amazon
MGM’s United Artists after Warner Bros. balked at the film’s cost.
“Watching filmmakers not get the money they need is frustrating,”
Driver says. “I don’t think I’m a value add. But I’m always down for
the cause because I love those filmmakers and their films. I’d
rather do a Michael Mann anything.”
“Ferrari,” which starred Driver as Enzo Ferrari, was Mann’s first
feature in eight years. It cost $95 million to make, but struggled
at the box office, grossing $43.6 million worldwide. Coppola’s
“Megalopolis” was even pricier, at $120 million, but Coppola paid
for it himself. To Driver, Coppola’s audacious sense of
experimentation is what moviemaking is all about, and what’s missing
from most filmmakers half Coppola’s age.
“The gesture of paying that much money for a film and him having the
trust that an audience would go with him — or that he didn’t care,
that this is how he wanted to do it — that to me is moving,” Driver
says. “Maybe people don’t like them or they’re not ready for them.
Maybe it’s boring to some, but it wasn’t boring making it.”
“Father Mother Sister Brother,” which Mubi will release Dec. 24 in
theaters, is a triptych about adult children and their parents. The
film’s first chapter features Driver and Mayim Bialik as siblings
visiting their hermetic father (Tom Waits). It’s Driver’s third film
with Jarmusch, following “Patterson” (2016) and “The Dead Don’t Die”
(2019).
Driver is notoriously against watching the films he’s in, so he
hasn’t watched Jarmusch’s film. But Driver has made some exceptions
lately. He watched “Ferrari.” He watched 2023’s “65.” He watched
“Megalopolis” numerous times.
“I tried it but I just don’t want to do it,” he says, laughing. “I
don’t want to look at my face.”
“It makes you conscious of what an audience is watching and I want
to retreat more and more into what’s going on internally for
someone,” says Driver. “More than ever, I don’t want to concern
myself with what’s happening externally."
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