Jessica Henwick's Absence In The Last Jedi Was Due To An Unfortunate Misunderstanding
Everyone (well, every cinephile) has their private list of actors who they think should be in more movies. Jessica Henwick is on my list.
The only feeling I can remember from watching "The Defenders" is being charmed by her performance as Colleen Wing. So much so that I was half-tempted to go back and watch "Iron Fist" (emphasis on half). Thankfully, I've had more options since then.
Henwick's plucky charisma carries her through both comedy and action hero roles (see "Love and Monsters," where she does both), and it pains me when she's stuck in uninspired movies like "Underwater" or "The Gray Man." That said, she is a scene-stealer in "The Matrix Resurrections" as Bugs (as in Bunny), the blue-haired hacker who reawakens Neo (Keanu Reeves).
She's even got some directing chops; in 2022, she made and starred in her own short film, "Bus Girl," about June, an aspiring chef working in a restaurant. Shot on a Xiaomi 11 phone, Henwick uses sweeping pans to reflect the bustle of the kitchen and June's big dreams.
2022 was also the year that Henwick cemented her comedy chops in "Glass Onion," the second in Rian Johnson's Benoit Blanc murder mystery movie series. She plays Peg, the hyper-competent assistant to buffoonish and insensitive fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) — one of Peg's first scenes is her literally putting out one of Birdie's fires.
Beforehand, Henwick had a small part in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" as Resistance pilot Jessika Pava (after losing out on the lead role of Rey). In case you didn't know, Johnson also directed "Star Wars" Episode VIII — "The Last Jedi," the sequel to "The Force Awakens." However, neither Jessica nor Jessika shows up in that film. Henwick herself asked why she wasn't brought back when she finally met Johnson.
Trading Star Wars for Glass Onion
In 2021 (back when "Glass Onion" was just known as "Knives Out 2"), Henwick spoke with SyFy about being cast by Johnson. It turns out, Johnson thought Henwick's character had died in "The Force Awakens."
"I was like, no dude, I survived. I have a whole series of comic books written about Jess Pava, and he didn't know that. So he was upset," Henwick recalled (adding that it's "trippy" to see her likeness hand-drawn in a comic). As fate would have it, this wasn't the first time she'd been snubbed by Johnson either:
"The bigger bone was that when I was a teenager and studying film studies, in class, we studied 'Brick,' his very first big feature film that made him. I wrote him a fan letter because he had his email on Google at the time. It was out there in the public, and he never responded to my fan letter."
As tempting as it would've been. Henwick didn't "guilt-trip" Johnson into casting her because of this. Still, she came out of the "Glass Onion" audition with not only the part but a long-delayed response to her fan letter: "'Hi, Jessica, I'm sorry it's taken me so long, I don't know what the delay was. Thank you for all your questions about 'Brick.'"
Johnson made the right call — if anything, "Glass Onion" needed more of Peg/Henwick. The funniest scene in the movie is when Peg learns that Birdie approved manufacturing in a sweatshop ... because she thought that was where they make sweatpants. Peg, wide-eyed with horror, pauses mid-sentence when asking this, not wanting to confirm the answer she already knows.
Fingers crossed Henwick gets the chance to be so funny in more movies, "Star Wars" or otherwise.