The “Star Wars” sequel trilogy’s major villain Supreme Leader Snoke was originally meant to be a female character, creature designer and sculptor Ivan Manzella revealed in a new interview.
Manzella spoke on the Force Material podcast about his work on the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, where he revealed he had multiple designs for Snoke.
I think initially when they spoke about her, (Snoke) was female. Because the first image I did I based on a female, but then that just very quickly went away. So either it was just in passing or something. But I think I just did one image. And that was it, and no one else did any more. I don’t know if anyone did really. Then, from then on, it just became the male.
He said she wasn’t given many details about the character ahead of her design.
He also revealed in the Force Material podcast (via ComicBook.com) that a fan theory that Snoke was Grand Moff Tarkin wasn’t too far off based on her designs.
“There were always Snoke theories that he was Grand Moff Tarkin, which I always found quite amusing. You can see there are elements there. The maquette, there’s elements of Peter Cushing, just the cheekbone and the profile and stuff, but he wasn’t meant to be Peter Cushing. He was my Hammer reference,” Manzella said.