This Detail About Laura Dern’s ‘Star Wars’ Character Is So Telling

Warning: Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi ahead. Remember when Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo sacrificed her own life to save the rest of the Resistance fighters and you were like, “Well, this character couldn’t possibly be any more incredible”? Well, buckle your RZ-2 seatbelt : Laura Dern recently revealed Vice Admiral Holdo was Force sensitive all along. Not only was she a selfless hero, but the Force also happened to be strong with that selfless hero.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the Emmy-winning actor said that her Star Wars: The Last Jedi character had a connection to the Force. She told the publication that through conversations with Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, and Kathleen Kennedy about Holdo, she learned that the Resistance leader was more in tune with the energy field that connects all living things than audiences might’ve realized. Dern said,

“But she was longing for peace, and a revolutionary in that way, and wanted to be trained by and led by Leia, who taught her everything she knew. She wanted to come up in the ranks to support Leia’s mission, but also had this otherworldly side that does involve the Force.”

It looks like General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and her temporary successor shared a rare an invaluable quality: a link to the Force.

Dern continued,

“There’s something about her that longs to protect it, and holds that with great care. There’s a sort of a light on and a wisdom that she speaks about in the film, and speaks to Oscar Isaac’s character briefly about it. Yeah, her primary goal was to protect the light, to protect the Force, and to keep the revolutionaries alive. And I think the film speaks so beautifully to that with this last image of the next generation of the Resistance, you know?”

Vice Admiral Holdo's unwavering commitment to protecting the light didn't always go over so well with Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and co., but their skepticism did not phase her. She would do whatever it took to keep the Resistance alive.

In a December 2017 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Dern recalled a meeting she had with Johnson long before the movie was made. She told the publication,

"[Johnson] invited me to lunch to talk about what he was working on, and it was not made clear what the film was. But the first thing he described was this quality of someone who is so steadfast that you don’t know what side they’re on because they don’t need the rest of the world to know their plans. The kind of person — the kind of woman — who is clear in her voice, and even in the company of men questioning her doesn’t need to justify her behavior or her choices, because if she was outspoken about it, it might not allow the plan to have room."

And Holdo's devotion to her plan ultimately cost her her own life. When the whole situation involving the Raddus reached an especially dire point, Vice Admiral Holdo quietly volunteered to pilot the ship to certain death so everyone else could be safe. As Princess Leia put it, “She cared more about protecting the light than seeming like a hero." She might've not cared about seeming like one, but Amilyn Holdo sure died die a hero.

Holdo was Force sensitive, and we barely got to see her use it. Ugh, can you even imagine what it would be like to watch Laura "Amy Jellicoe" Dern really flex her Force muscles throughout Episode IX? What a gift that would've been. If Holdo had not died on the Raddus, who knows what would've happened next? ... Oh, right. Everyone in the Resistance probably would've been killed by the Order. Fair point.