Andy Serkis says his 'Star Wars' character Supreme Leader Snoke is like the Wizard of Oz.

Andy Serkis

Andy Serkis

The 53-year-old actor first starred as the leader of the First Order in 2015's 'The Force Awakens' and has reprised his role in the much-anticipated eighth installment 'The Last Jedi', helmed by Rian Johnson.

Although he has been tight-lipped on who his character really is, the British star has described him as having some similarities to the mysterious character in the 1939 movie 'The Wizard of Oz' starring Judy Garland, who rules the Land of Oz with smoke and mirrors.

Speaking at the European press conference for the sci-fi film at the Corinthia Hotel in London on Wednesday (13.12.17), Serkis said: "It was a real challenge I had such a brilliant time working with Rian and the way he decided to take the character in this. But trying to, with all characters that are representing evil or so called evil, it's very important to try and humanize them in some way. And there's a vulnerability that we try to approach with Snoke which is brought out of fear actually and I think fear that there is, of course the First Order is in a pretty bad state ruled by General Hux and a conflicted Kylo Ren. But the thing is about Snoke is there's this public hologram sort of at 5am in the morning. A hologram appearance that he does to scare people. He's like the Wizard of Oz. Behind the curtains he's this frail creature who is fearful of a very powerful feminine energy coming to take him down. We always try and find a spark of humanity in that."

The feminine energy Snoke is fearful of is the Force sensitive Rey (Daisy Ridley) who successfully finds Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) at the end of 'The Force Awakens'.

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