5 facts you might not know about Adam Driver in Star Wars

Kylo Ren quickly became a Star Wars fan favorite, but how much do you know about the man behind the cracked mask?

Adam Driver has quite an impressive resume beyond just the Star Wars franchise. His first credited on-screen role was in 2009 and since then he has been nominated for almost 100 awards, including: Oscars, Tonys, BAFTAs, Emmys, and Golden Globes.

If you’ve watched Driver’s entire body of work (*cough*), you may already know a few of these tidbits about his life. But if you only know him as Kylo Ren, here are Star Wars-adjacent five facts that you may not know about Adam Driver.

5 little-known facts about Adam Driver

1. Adam Driver appeared in a film with Oscar Isaac before Star Wars: The Force Awakens 

Driver had a supporting role in the Academy Award-nominated Coen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis, opposite Oscar Isaac. He played Al Cody, a musician who sings “Please Mr. Kennedy” in a scene with Oscar Isaac and Justin Timberlake.

Unfortunately, Driver is noted to have hated his performance in the film. In an interview with the New Yorker last year, he disliked it so much he swore off watching his own performances, until The Force Awakens.  During the interview, Driver said, “I just went totally cold because I knew the scene was coming up where I had to kill Han Solo, and people were, like, hyperventilating when the title came up, and I felt like I had to puke.”

2. Adam Driver has hosted Saturday Night Live three times

Driver is just two appearances away from joining the prestigious “Five-Timers Club” at Saturday Night Live. His most notable sketch on the series was a play on Undercover Boss, that saw Driver donning the role of Kylo Ren going on undercover on the Starkiller Base. Matt the Radar Technician kept Kylo Ren fans busy for three years, spawning fan fiction, TikToks, and so much fan art.

During his 2020 return to SNL, the Undercover Boss sketch was revived with a cheeky homage to “okay, boomer,” which already feels like something that happened a decade ago in 2020-time. Randy the Intern captured the hearts of Kylo Ren fans with just as much fervor as Matt the Radar Technician.

3. Adam Driver was a fan of the original Star Wars films 

Driver grew up as a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, though in an interview with GQ he was quite candid about his hesitations with major franchises. Driver told GQ’s Alex Bhattacharji, “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle. When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

In a Collider interview during the press tour for The Force Awakens, Driver was put on the spot to rank the six Star Wars films. How did he rank them? Hesitantly. He ranked The Empire Strikes Back before Return of the Jedi and A New Hope, before offering up Revenge of the Sith, Attack of the Clones, and The Phantom Menace for the prequel trilogy.

4. He took home his costume

Every actor dreams of taking home a piece of their iconic costumes, but it seems Driver was able to take home his Kylo Ren costume. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Driver joked that he had taken home his costume and kept it in his guest room.

As if that wasn’t enough to imagine, Driver also went on to say, “I’ll wear it around the neighborhood if I’m really, really bored.” Yes, you read that right. Apparently, the kids in the apartment building he lives in are really big fans of Kylo Ren and it sounds like he might treat them to a little sneak peek of Kylo Ren at home.

5. Burn This wasn’t Adam Driver’s first stage performance

Before the release of The Rise of Skywalker, Adam Driver fans had the opportunity to see him on Broadway in Burn This, opposite fellow Star Wars actor Keri Russell. But this wasn’t the first time Driver appeared on stage. Following his stint in the marines, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill and enrolled at the University of Indianapolis before attending Julliard.

At the University of Indianapolis, Driver landed leading roles in productions of Pippin and Endgame. If you look hard enough on the internet, you may even be able to track down a few images from the University of Indianapolis’ theater department.

For more Star Wars facts, keep up with the Star Wars Actors category on Dork Side of the Force!