Star Wars: Chewbacca Actor Addresses the Missed Hug With Leia From The Force Awakens

When Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in 2015, some fans took exception to Leia and Chewbacca ignoring each other after Han Solo’s death. Leia didn’t look for comfort in her old friend Chewie, who had been Han’s best friend for decades and fought alongside Leia to overthrow the Empire. Instead, Leia hugged Rey, who had only met them shortly before Han’s death. Actor Joonas Suotamo, who was Peter Mayhew’s stunt double in The Force Awakens before taking over the role of Chewbacca in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about this missed moment.

“Chewbacca got to hug Leia at the end of The Last Jedi, which was a cool moment,” Suotamo says. “Carrie Fisher and I made a point to have a special moment in that closing Falcon scene. But, the story is so huge that these small mishaps — as some people call them — don’t weigh as much when you’re bringing the Skywalker saga to an end. I’m just glad we corrected the Leia hug in The Last Jedi.

“My take on The Force Awakens‘ missed hug was that Chewie was so preoccupied with helping Finn that his time to grieve and hug people came later,” he continues. “For The Force Awakens, we actually shot a special scene — a consolation scene for Chewie — which didn’t make it into the finished film or DVD. The thought process behind it was a little bit different than what ended up being in the film, and those kinds of things always affect the final decision-making on the day.”

For his part, Abrams admitted in a 2017 interview that not including a hug between Leia and Chewie was an error on his part. “That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that,” J.J. Abrams said. “My thinking at the time was that Chewbacca, despite the pain he was feeling, was focused on trying to save Finn and getting him taken care of. So I tried to have Chewbacca go off with him and focus on Rey, and then have Rey find Leia and Leia find Rey.”

The comic book Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance – Rey #1 retconned The Force Awakens when Marvel published it in September 2019. The comic is part of the official Star Wars canon and includes a scene of Leia crying in Chewbacca’s arms following Han’s death in The Force Awakens.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now playing in theaters.