ACTOR STUNNED BY THE STARRIEST OF ROLES
IT’S the movie gig every actor in their right mind would kill to get – a part in the multi-million-dollar-spinning Star Wars franchise. But, in the case of Cardiff’s Mark Lewis Jones, he didn’t even have to audition for his role in the latest blockbuster instalment of the sci-fi saga because they just offered him a part out of the blue. Well, sort of. “Like everyone else I know I went to audition for The Force Awakens (the series’ previous episode) and didn’t get anywhere with it,” said the north Walesborn 53-year-old.
“But I guess they must have kept my name on a list somewhere because when they started scouting around for Last Jedi actors I got the call.”
However Mark – who appears prominently at the start of the new film as ruthless First Order official Captain Canady – confessed he was stunned by the levels of secrecy surrounding the hush-hush production.
“I know Star Wars is a big thing but I never dreamt it would be that full-on.
“When I went for a costume fitting at Pinewood Studios they gave me my lines on an iPad and I had to learn them pretty much there and then.
“Afterwards the tablet was taken off me and that was the last I saw of it – plus we had to walk around the set in camouflage robes, just in case anyone with a long range lens was hanging about trying to take shots of us in our uniforms.
“I was also sworn to silence for about a year that I was even in the thing – not that I could’ve given the game away as I didn’t know anything anyhow.
“Not being much of a sci-fi geek in the first place I had to ask someone what the First Order even was.”
That’s the intergalactic military dictatorship which sprang up after the fall of the Empire after the events of Return of the Jedi in 1983. Mark’s turn as Canady has been compared online to that of Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin in the very first movie.
“I believe that’s a big compliment – and I kind of play him with a posh Welsh accent.
“But, to be honest, I was a teenager when Star Wars first came out and was more into movies like Taxi Driver and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, so it kind of passed me by a bit,” said Mark, best known of late for playing the roguish Rob Morgan in Ruth Jones’ hit Valleys sitcom Stella.
Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped Mark turning up in hit fantasy shows like Game of Thrones – as Shagga, leader of the Stone Crows – and BBC supernatural drama Being Human.
“I was an S&M vampire in that – I got eaten by the bloke from Soldier Soldier, who played a werewolf. What’s his name? Oh yeah, Robson Green.”
And Mark admitted to having to watch out for another type of predator if he ever ventures into Cardiff on an international day.
“If there are any coach loads of women down from the Valleys to watch the game then things usually get hairy,” he said.
“Especially if they’ve already had a few on the journey down, if you know what I mean.
“A lot of them think I’m actually my character on Stella, see – most of them even call me Rob.”
But what does his 13-year-old son think of his dad being in the new Star Wars film?
“He’s not seen it yet – as a matter of fact, neither have I,” he said.
“We’re going to the cinema in Nantgarw to watch it on Sunday – he’s bringing his friends and their dads, too.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in cinemas everywhere now.