Star Wars Actor Gets Candid On Filming Rogue One With Unfinished Script: “I Had My Mission”

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actor Mads Mikkelsen candidly addresses the experience of filming the movie with an unfinished script. Mikkelsen plays Galen Erso, the father of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones). He is also the brilliant scientist who creates the Death Star’s superlaser technology and places a secret fatal flaw within the Imperial weapon.

Despite being a box office hit that grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, along with being widely considered as an all-time great Star Wars movie, Rogue One underwent many changes behind the scenes. This included the script evolving while the movie was still being filmed.

While speaking with Variety, Mikkelsen emphasized how the script was “surprisingly unfinished” for a major franchise film. Despite this challenge, he found the ongoing alterations to be “livable” as Galen’s story remained the same, with the character determined to get the Death Star plans into the hands of the Rebel Alliance.

Mikkelsen saw the changes as more of an issue for the two main heroes, Jyn and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), but ultimately feels that Rogue One became “a really nice film.” Check out his comments below:

For Star Wars filming, it was surprisingly unfinished in the script. It kept changing, and one would think that was already done. I don’t think they ever locked a draft. I think they kept working on it and improvised, and went back and reshot stuff, and then came back with a better idea, which is kind of livable for a character like mine. I had my mission, I knew what it was, but it was obviously tricky for the two young heroes not knowing exactly what they were carrying into a room of baggage. But I think it turned out to be a really nice film.

Mikkelsen also spoke about filming Galen’s emotional death scene, where he reunites with Jyn in his final moments. This scene was affected by the changes to the story, in addition to the challenge of being drenched in “ice-cold water” and keeping his eyes open while delivering Galen’s dying words.

That was a brutal — I would say day, but it was days, because there was a lot of changes in the story. We went back and forth, and it was raining. When you do artificial rain, it is almost impossible to do that in a long scene without having ice-cold water. So I was lying there, freezing to death, trying to keep my eyes open while I’m looking at my daughter and doing this little speech to her. That was an uphill battle, let’s put it that way.

The success of Rogue One led to Cassian getting his own Star Wars show on Disney+. Tony Gilroy, who was brought onto Rogue One for rewrites and reshoots, is the creator and showrunner of the critically acclaimed series, which follows Cassian and the development of the Rebel Alliance prior to stealing the Death Star plans. Mikkelsen does not have a cameo in the spinoff, but Galen is mentioned.

Due to his role in both creating and destroying the Death Star, Galen has become a vital character in Star Wars canon. His story before Rogue One is further expanded on in the novel Catalyst by James Luceno. It also delves more into Galen’s relationships with his wife, Lyra Erso (Valene Kane), Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).

Since starring in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Mikkelsen has also been in Another Round (2020), Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), Mufasa: The Lion King (2024), and most recently, Dust Bunny (2025).