Pip Andersen, New Star Wars Actor, Practices Parkour
Pip Andersen, one of the newest additions to the cast of Star Wars Episode VII is a practitioner [...]
Pip Andersen, one of the newest additions to the cast of Star Wars Episode VII is a practitioner of parkour.
Parkour was the latest internet craze about ten years ago, before it peaked in popularity when it was used in the opening scene of Casino Royale and then was mostly forgotten, except by the people who made the videogame Mirror's Edge and people who saw that one episode of The Office.
The idea of parkour is to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible, using only your body and your surroundings. This generally means maintaining as much momentum as possible by running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling, and never stopping. Practitioners often try to challenge themselves by setting up obstacle courses or finding natural ones in city landscapes.
Anderson is good enough at the discipline to have landed a role in this Sony commercial, where he dresses as Spider-Man and uses parkour to make his way through the city, which has some conveniently placed movie posters for The Amazing Spider-Man hanging around.
Here a few more of Andersen's videos, from his YouTube page.
Whether or not Andersen's parkour skills are what netted him the Star Wars job, or will be seen in the film at all, remains to be seen, but you could certainly imagine him putting those skills to use in some acrobatic lightsaber fight scenes.
Star Wars Episode VII comes to theaters December 18, 2015.
