Mickey Lewis: One Foot in Both Camps

On a visit to ‘GEEKS: Heroes and Foes’ event this weekend in the Mander Centre, Wolverhampton, UK, I met up with Mickey Lewis. Now, while his roles are uncredited, he does have a rather unusual claim to fame. In Rogue One he was an Imperial Fleet Trooper, in The Force Awakens he was a First Order Officer and in The Last Jedi, he appeared as Resistance Bridge Comms Officer. So, that means he has one foot in both camps of the fight between good and evil in a galaxy far, far away.

“Yeah, it is a bit of an unusual one” explained Mickey. “I like to think that my character could have been a defector from the Imperials and First Order to the Resistance. Although there’s no back story, it would be fun to think of it that way.”

Mickey went on to tell me some stories of his days on set of The Last Jedi. “I was in 3 or 4 scenes alongside Laura Dern and the late Carrie Fisher. The one thing I remember about Carrie was that she brought her dog, who is known as Gary Fisher, onto set and I nearly stood on him. Luckily I didn’t and no damage done, I was relieved when I got a nice smile and wink off his mom as reassurance I was in the clear.”

“Another funny moment was when Mark Hamill came to visit during my shooting of the scenes for The Last Jedi. I remember being approach by a gentleman who looked a bit scruffy, with a big beard and a woolly hat pulled down over his head. He asked me where the director was and I duly pointed him out. After a quick thank you, he made his way towards Rian Johnson and my colleague next to me was all wide-eyed. I asked him what was up, only to be told it was the Jedi Master himself who I’d been talking to! I can’t believe I didn’t recognise him, but I have some great memories of those shoots on all 3 films.”

Mickey’s call list carry’s some pretty impressive titles. Wonder Woman, Doctor Who, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. are amongst this list. “One of the nicest people I have worked with has to be Hugh Grant. He’s really funny, very friendly and extremely talented. I would love to see him cast in a Star Wars movie or TV show in the future.”

We started to talk about what his current projects were. “I have a role in the new BBC adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. It’s already aired in other countries, but goes out in the UK next weekend. I am really excited to see this in full. I play a police officer who comes to an untimley end at the hands of the Martians heat ray. It’s brilliant to see such an amazing book being set in the correct time period and place of Edwardian England.”

We also talked about the location for the GEEKS Event as it is my home town. “I hear that they had a show earlier this year that was really successful. I know Paul Warren and Paul Blake attended in May and I had heard good things. I have worked with Paul Warren previously, he plays a lot of the monsters and heavily made up characters. It’s been a slow start this morning, but it’s really starting to get busier.”

After talking to Mickey, it did make me think, wouldn’t it be cool if the story group picked up on the fact of there could be another defector as well as Finn and wrote Mickey’s character a back story?

A big thank you goes to Mickey for taking the time to talk to Jedi News. You can view Mickey’s full list of roles on IMDb or contact him via Facebook.