Glyn Dillon is the man behind some of the most well-known Star Wars costumes (Picture: LucasFilm/Disney)

Everyone loves an Easter egg – we’re not talking the chocolate kind, even though, yes, we do love those as well – but there are a few doozies in Star Wars you might have missed. So aren’t you lucky we’re here to get the details from the horse’s mouth?

The horse, of course, being costume designer Glyn Dillon, who, while currently hard at work coming up with Robert Pattinson’s suit for the upcoming The Batman, is behind the brilliant Ello Asty alien as well as Kylo Ren’s helmet.

Not a bad CV, non?

When tuning into JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens back in 2015, you may not have realised the Resistance alien Ello Asty possessed a fiendishly-placed Easter egg by Dillon, who knew the director was a fan of the Beastie Boys.




Not only did he bury his two sons’ names on Poe Dameron’s (Oscar Issac) helmet in the film as chief concept artist in the costume dept, he’s also to blame for the rather intriguingly-named alien.

‘I knew that JJ was a Beastie Boys fan and he always puts Beastie Boys in his films. I figured he couldn’t do that with Star Wars so on one of the aliens I put Born To Ill on one side and on the other Hello Nasty,’ Dillon tells Metro.co.uk of his album drops. ‘It goes through to the breakdown place, which is where all these amazing artists make everything look old, so they scratch helmets and make them look dirty and they scratched off the letters H and N so when it went on the creature department named him Ello Asty, so as a toy it came out as Ello Asty.’

The glorious Ello Asty (Picture: LucasFilm/Disney)

He adds: ‘Nobody knew it was my intention to do the Beastie Boys tribute.’

The designer, who is also an accomplished author having published graphic novel The Nao Of Brown, insists picking a favourite costume would be like picking between kids – but Kylo Ren is up there.

The artist is behind Adam Driver’s character’s helmet, which will go down in history as one of the more iconic costumes in the franchise and canon.

Just don’t mention that.

‘I got sick of hearing it had to be iconic,’ he laughs. ‘We know it had to be iconic and what makes something iconic is difficult to say. The thing is, if someone is designing Darth Vader’s helmet now I don’t think it would have got past the director or the producer.’

Kylo’s helmet was Dillon’s work (Picture: Rex Features)

‘It’s something about not only what it is but what it belongs to, what the music is with it, the script, the whole character,’ he continues. ‘It’s not just the whole design. You do your best but it’s so much more that makes it iconic.’

Asked whether he knew it was Driver who would be wearing the helmet when he started on the design, Dillon says: ‘Well not at the very beginning, we knew it was a character called the Jedi Killer, that was the code, and then gradually the story changed.

‘You’re on quite early before the full script is finished and often the concepts might help inform those changes as well. Originally he was going to be injured and his costume was going to be in some way a bit like Vader’s, it would be assisting him. Then it changed more and for a while JJ was trying to get away from it being too close to Vader and I wanted to try and do the short sports cowl thing.’



He says of the Vader reference: ‘In the end it made more sense, as he worshipped him so much he could have a little nod to his grandfather in that way.’

Good ol Hans outfit (Picture: Glyn Dillon)

Glyn is the creative force behind some ground-breaking additions to pop culture

Dillon went on to be co-costume designer alongside Dave Crossman for the characters in Solo: A Star Wars Story as well as Rogue One, but having crafted something so quote-unquote iconic in the past, his graphic novel The Nao Of Brown, which focuses on a protagonist with OCD (‘But not the kind of hand-washing one, it’s intrusive, violent thoughts’) could be the next big thing in pop culture.

First published in 2012, it’s had a few print runs and the latest has shiny new material, for a shiny new audience. And for TV? When it comes to the tapping at the door of producers – what with the success of graphic novels The Umbrella Academy and The End Of The F***ing World on Netflix – Dillon’s tight-lipped on what we may be seeing of Nao.

Perhaps well be seeing the Nao Of Brown on tellies? (Picture: Glyn Dillon)

‘There’s something going on with that, not sure what I can say about it,’ he says. Alright then, moving on…

What he can tell us about is his latest exhibition, Kapow, at the Stoke On Trent Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, in which he’s created a painting based on a comic of his late brother Steve Dillon, titled This Is It.

But, hang on, what about Batman’s suit?

‘I can’t say anything.’

Did you know Robert Pattinson would be Batman before starting work?


‘Ah, I can’t say.’

This man is an iron fortress! Guess we’ll chat with him in a year about all the Easter eggs he managed to get onto the caped crusader’s threads.

Glyn Dillon’s work will be on show at 8 February 2020 – 27 September, The Nao Of Brown is published by SelfMadeHeroand you know where to find Star Wars.

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