When the character of Poe Dameron was first pitched to Oscar Isaac, he was told by director J.J. Abrams that he would portray an amazing fighter pilot who has done some pretty incredible things to fight what is left of the Empire.
The only catch was - he will die even before the story of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" unfolds.
Isaac shared with GQ the conversation he had with Abrams before they started filming the seventh installment of the franchise:
"He's amazing!" said Abrams, to which Isaac thought, "Sounds good!"
Abrams then continued that "He opens the whole movie!" Isaac continues to feel good about the character until Abrams admitted: "And then he dies."
Isaac said that he actually did that already in "The Bourne Legacy," where he "set up the plot for the main guy and then die spectacularly."
But Abrams was pretty insistent on getting Isaac as Poe Dameron.
"I wanted to impress upon him how much I wanted this to work," Abrams recalled. "We talked about the story and who this character could be. I loved the collaboration. People like Oscar are the people you listen to."
As much as Abrams raved about the character's role in the film, Isaac was hesitant to sign on. "I went back home (to New York), and I thought about it," he shared. "Then I wrote him and said, 'Okay. I'll do it!' I figured it would be a cameo: I'll come in, do my thing, and maybe it's actually better not to have to sign myself up for three movies."
But things have changed significantly since Abrams first talked to Isaac. The director wrote back to the actor: "Never mind. I've figured it out. You're in the whole movie now."
To replace Poe Dameron's initial death, Abrams decided that it would have to be Harrison Ford's Han Solo who would bite the dust.
"What is Han doing in this movie?' If we're not going to have something important and irreversible happen to him, then he kind of feels like luggage. He feels like this great, sexy piece of luggage you have in your movie. But he's not really evolving. He's not really pushing the story forward," Abrams shared with Collider.
As painful as it was to kill off his character, Abrams explained that they needed to do it because otherwise the movie would not have "any guts at all."
