Chewbacca's actor Joonas Suotamo is the latest person of note to offer words of support for fellow Star Wars alum Kelly Marie Tran on social media. The 33-year-old Finnish actor and former professional basketball player called the standing ovation Tran received from fans at Star Wars Celebration in April one of his favorite moments of 2019.
Tran entered the Star Wars universe through her role Rose Tico in Rian Johnson's polarizing entry into the Skywalker saga, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In the film, Tico's sister sacrifices herself during a battle with the First Order and it eventually inspires her to team up with John Boyega's Finn in an effort to disable the tracking device on an enemy flagship which is pursuing their Resistance vessel through hyperspace. In the wake of The Last Jedi, Tran endured online harassment to the point that she deleted her Instagram account. In spite of the bullying, Tran reprises her role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Suotamo, meanwhile, shared the role of Chewie with the character's original actor, Peter Mayhew, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and has been the sole steward of the role since then.
In a post on Twitter on Saturday, Suotamo said "One of the best moments of 2019 was seeing the standing ovation that Kelly Marie Tran received from fans at Star Wars Celebration. She deserves applause every time she enters a room." His tweet has garnered more than 12,000 likes and a litany of responses from fans voicing their own support of both Tran and Suotamo.
They aren't the only ones backing Tran and her performance in Star Wars. Director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) took to Twitter earlier in the week offering his services to Disney for a Rose Tico spin-off series for Disney+. His tweet included the hashtag #RoseTicoDeservedBetter, which has been trending as a result of Tico playing a significantly smaller role in The Rise of Skywalker. Tran is on-screen for less than two minutes of the film's 142-minute running time, which many are calling a gross disservice to the character.
The Rose Tico character may have been divisive for fans initially, but there's no denying that Tran received an unfair amount of criticism following The Last Jedi. Since that time, however, fans, fellow actors and filmmakers have rallied around her and the character has developed something of a cult following. The championing of both a character and an actor who are people of color - in a series which has lacked diversity at times - is undoubtedly one of the positives to come out of the latest entries into the Star Wars series.
Source: Twitter
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