Star Wars: Kelly Marie Tran Confirms the Porgs Once Looked Terrifying Before ‘The Last Jedi’

Audiences got their first glimpses of porgs during a behind-the-scenes reel of The Last Jedi at last summer’s D23 Expo and they immediately became the talk of social media. The creatures may have ultimately looked adorable in the finished film, but star Kelly Marie Tran confirmed they didn’t always look quite so cute.

“When it was sort of still mechanical? It would move and it would like [buzz] and it was just so odd,” she noted to Nerdist of the puppets used on set. “I’ve kind of seen porgs through the process and from the beginning, I mean, I loved them immediately. I think they’re so adorable, and my first reaction was truly just kind of geeking out over them. Because I don’t think that we’ve really seen something like that in the Star Wars universe before.”

One reason why Tran might feel such a strong connection to the critters is that she played a part in bringing them to life, even if she wasn’t supposed to.

“And yeah, I feathered some of them. I definitely, probably overstepped my bounds and kind of walked around and went to all the different departments,” Tran admitted. “I was feathering porgs, I was putting hairs on the fathiers, and I remember telling myself, ‘I’m just gonna walk around and do things until I get into trouble.’ And no one got me in trouble. So, hopefully, that’s just the way my life will go.”

Early incarnations of the mechanical creations sound horrifying, which mirrors the experience that creature designer Neal Scanlan had of creating them.

“Doing the porgs, actually, was terrifying, because you have a fear that if you get it wrong, all the fans are going to hate you forever, quite frankly,” Scanlan revealed to Entertainment Tonight. “It was great…as soon as we heard that there was a warm reaction to them. It’s great. They are incredibly lovable. I don’t mean that because it has anything to do with me, they just come across in the film [that way].”

Fans can witness the porgs in their adorable glory in The Last Jedi, out now on Digital HD and Blu-ray.

What was your favorite creature in The Last Jedi? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T Nerdist]