A scene from the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens in which Adam Driver stars portrays the character Kylo Ren.
Star Wars actor Adam Driver has good news for fans: Episode VIII is just like the beloved sequel Empire Strikes Back.
The Girls star, who joined the cast as Kylo Ren in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, said the tone of the new screenplay will be familiar to many diehard fans of the sci-fi franchise.
"It's great. It's similar to how The Empire Strikes Back has a different tone," the 32-year-old told Collider about the script, penned by writer-director Rian Johnson.
"For that people always go 'ooh, it's dark' but I don't know that it necessarily is. It's just different in tone in a way that I think is great and necessary but also very clear.
"He trusts [that] his audience is ready for nuance and ambiguity. He's not dumbing anything down for someone and that's really fun to play."
Driver also praised Johnson's ability to pick up where director J.J. Abrams left off in The Force Awakens.
"Rian's writing is so clear. I learned a lot of things about my character through his writing," Driver said.
"Some things we talked about before and some things we didn't. He was working on [the script] while we were still working on the first one. To understand what J.J. was doing and take ownership from there is kind of a remarkable thing."
The Empire Strikes Back is widely regarded as the best of all the Star Wars movies.
The 1980 film came in at number three in an Empire magazine poll of the 500 greatest movies of all time. More than 10,000 readers and key critics voted in the 2008 poll.
Star Wars: Episode VIII is slated to hit cinemas on December 15, 2017.
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