A Strong Female Role Model in Felicity Jones

I was super excited to find out that I was going to sit down with the female lead of Rogue One – Felicity Jones. I was even more excited when she came with an action figure of herself that had 8 arms just because her nephew likes to pull arms off dolls.

It was weird and totally thoughtful. I work with middle school and high school students and know that young ladies need women to look up to.  I believe Felicity is a young woman they can look up to.

She plays Jyn in Rogue One.  Felicity describes Jyn as having a strong ideology.  The empire has destroyed her family and she has a hatred for them. She starts out suspicious and untrusting of others and as the story plays out she learns how to become a leader.

Throughout the day we interviewed other cast members and over and over again they spoke so highly of Felicity.  They shared what a wonderful friend and fellow actor she was as well as what an amazing leader she was.

We asked her about her training and she told us it was just lots and lots of practice.  She practiced over and over with the stunt guys. The results definitely paid off when you see her amazing moves! I want to be Jyn when I grow up 😉

She shared more about Jyn and told us some of her favorite characteristics were her perseverance and determination. There is a resourcefulness to her – she doesn’t need to keep being saved. So often in films the female character is often the one who is in distress and then the male character comes and gets her out of it.  This is not the case for Jyn.

Jyn is not a princess, she’s not rich,  and she’s not privileged. She’s very much ordinary. Felicity shared that she wants young girls to take away resourcefulness and resilience when they see her character in the film.

“I think it’s important that young girls don’t feel like they have to conform to some idea of what a girl should be. You can be whoever you want, whatever you are and take confidence in that.”

She shared why she loved being part of the Star Wars family and what it means to her.

“I feel the reason it’s lasted for so long is it’s about family. It’s people who come together and they’re obviously united by fighting the forces of evil.”

When we asked her if we’d  ever see Jyn go to the dark side she laughed – No! She’s on the good side all the way!

She expanded her answer profoundly in that it’s a choice that we all have.  The choice of who you are and who you’ll choose to become.

Star Wars Rogue One hit theaters on December 16th. Do you have your tickets yet?