By Emma Thrower | Posted 17 Nov 2015

With The Force Awakens' release creeping ever closer, there's still a great deal of secrecy surrounding Andy Serkis' mysterious Supreme Leader. We know Snoke is a big deal, but he may be even bigger than first thought - and we're talking some serious inches. 300 of them, to be precise.

"It was quite an unusual situation," Serkis tells us in the new issue of Empire. "I worked specifically with Domhnall Gleeson and with Adam Driver. My first day was basically standing on a 25-foot podium doing Lord Snoke without the faintest idea what he looked like... or in fact who he was! I was very high up, totally on my own, away from everybody else, but acting with them."

For someone whose characters are usually front and centre of their respective films (hello Gollum, King Kong and Caesar), it's a refreshing change to see Serkis' Snoke so firmly under wraps. "He is severely damaged. Although he's a powerful leader, he comes across as vulnerable. Very scarred and disfigured." But the actor assures us that Snoke is a guaranteed force to be reckoned with: “we used sort of a ‘Kongolizer’ method of having sound come out of speakers to give a sense of scale and distance for the character. So it was very challenging and scary, in fact probably one of my most scary film experiences I’ve ever had."

With only a few weeks before Star Wars hits cinemas, it's unlikely the House of Mouse will lay more Snoke-shaped breadcrumbs. Luckily there are many more secrets to be discovered in the Force Awakens issue of Empire, which hits shelves on November 26.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released on December 17 in the UK and lands in the US the following day.