Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren in the Star Wars series, is confused as to why everyone calls his character ’emo’.

Kylo Ren first appeared in the series’ The Force Awakens instalment, with his long black, dark wardrobe and moody demeanour instantly drawing comparisons to the ’emo’ subculture, defined by black clothing and the highly emotional music of bands like My Chemical Romance. It even spawned its own parody Twitter account, “Emo Kylo Ren”.

Now, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Driver asks: “What is emo?”


The article notes the Driver appears to have missed the proliferation of the rock offshoot genre through the 2000s, instead choosing to deconstruct Kylo Ren’s personal turmoil. “You have someone who’s being told that he’s special his whole life,” Driver says of his character, “and he can feel it. And he feels everything probably more intensely than the people around him, you know?”

Sounds pretty emo.

READ MORE: 20 Emo Albums That Have Resolutely Stood The Test Of Time

At the start of the year, Driver teased that Kylo Ren would show “humanity” in the upcoming The Last Jedi.

Asked to name one aspect of Kylo Ren he’s excited for fans to see in the new movie, Driver told Larry King: “I think, erm, maybe this is such a general answer but you know – humanity. Even though it’s very much a blockbuster movie, there was no taking that for granted.”

Driver added: “There was a lot of plot points that we knew were operating in the first one, that we get to explain more in the second one, to make both of them make sense. But they do kind of feel socially active to me, and George Lucas originally, a lot of Star Wars was in response to Vietnam and a lot of what I remember talking about with JJ [Abrams] and Rian [Johnson] was this idea of terrorism, and two sides being morally justified to behave however they wanted to to get whatever they thought was absolutely correct.”


Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released December 14 in the UK and December 15 elsewhere.