'Rogue One': Donnie Yen explains the hardest part of fighting blind
In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the most skillful warrior (and perhaps most likable character) in the galaxy is Chirrut Îmwe. The spiritual character, played by renowned Chinese martial artist Donnie Yen, can do more with a stick than most can with a lightsaber.
And the character is blind.
Yen isn't visually-impaired in real life, but playing a blind character whose gaze is always forward presented challenges — most of which had nothing to do with fighting.
"I don't think that was the most difficult part because I've been in many of these, 70 of these (action) films before," he told Paste BN on the Rogue One premiere carpet in Hollywood Saturday. "To me, the hardest part was I wasn't able to interact with my fellow actors. I wasn't able to look them in the eyes and draw on their reactions."
Another thing making Yen's job hard? Foggy contact lenses. They were so uncomfortable, Yen said, that he had to remove them every 20 minutes.
Rogue One, the first standalone Star Wars film, hits theaters Dec. 16.