Rookies

Laura Dern, as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, a newcomer to the saga. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Unlike most film-set photo shoots, there are more than slick costumes and stunning locations on display in Vanity Fair’s exclusive images from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Annie Leibovitz traveled to the rocky shores of Ireland and the closely guarded Pinewood Studios set to photograph some never-before-seen characters and confirm a rumor or two in the process. Lucasfilm has mastered the art of secret-keeping—remember that Rey didn’t hold a lightsaber in any The Force Awakens marketing— but is ready to pull back the curtain on some of The Last Jedi’s mysteries in these exclusive photographs from the Summer issue of Vanity Fair.

To help point out some significant details you might have missed, VF.com asked Pablo Hidalgo— Lucasfilm Story Group creative executive and, in the words of The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, “keeper of all arcane details of Star Wars”—to explain some of the portfolio’s hidden depths.

One of the biggest surprises waiting in the pages of Vanity Fair is the first look at Laura Dern’s magenta-haired Admiral Amilyn Holdo. Hair this color is not commonly seen in Star Wars films, but Hidalgo confirms that Dern’s character, a high-ranking officer in the Resistance, is human. The magenta hair, he says, has to do with her “cultural background.” When quizzed on whether this is the first time a human in the films has adopted such an unnatural hue, Hidalgo responded like a walking encyclopedia with a sense of humor, “I know there was a platinum blonde in Jabba’s Palace whose hair color was probably suspicious, but only her hair dresser knows for sure.”

Rookies

Benicio Del Toro, as the shifty “DJ,” a newcomer to the saga. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

But as much as Hidalgo knows about every nook and cranny of the Star Wars universe, he and Lucasfilm did not reveal any extra details about Benicio Del Toro’s enigmatic character—not even his name. This is the Last Jedi character most shrouded in secrecy. But Vanity Fair’s David Kamp was able to wring a few hints out of director Rian Johnson in our Summer cover story, which you can read here.

Night Creatures

Neal Scanlan (seated), creative supervisor of the Star Wars creature shop, and guests at the Canto Bight casino. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

Though not much is known about either of these new characters, it looks as though Dern’s Admiral Holdo would fit right in with the high-class occupants of Canto Bight—The Last Jedi’s upscale answer to the Mos Eisley cantina. It’s especially odd to see the upper echelon of the galaxy partying in The Last Jedi considering that the capital planet of the New Republic, Hosnian Prime, was blown up by the First Order’s Starkiller in The Force Awakens. Are these well-dressed patrons just fiddling while Rome burns?

“What we’re going to see in The Last Jedi,” Hidalgo explains, “are some people who have managed to carve out a life for themselves where they can live apart from the galactic struggle. They found a way to live above it or beyond it. There’s a class of wealthy that have helped build all sorts of loopholes in society that will always ensure that they’ll survive or even thrive no matter what else is happening out there.” As Johnson summed it up in our cover story, Canto Bight is “a playground, basically, for rich assholes.”

The Dark Side

First Order leaders General Hux, Kylo Ren, and Captain Phasma, played by Domhnall Gleeson, Adam Driver, and Gwendoline Christie. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.

And though that chrome-plated trooper suit is, by now, firmly a part of the Star Wars iconography, this portfolio is the first time Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma has shown her face. “I think a big part of the allure of her character was just wondering what might be underneath,” Hidalgo explains of keeping the Game of Thrones star helmeted in the first film of the current trilogy. “It was only relatively recently that we wanted to commit to the idea that there was a human under there. The Force Awakens left that question, but as we got further into Last Jedi, as well as some other stories we’re thinking about with Phasma, we had to ask ourselves, ‘All right, do we agree there’s a human under there?’ ”