Watch Kelly Marie Tran's Audition For The Last Jedi

Before she could step into a galaxy far, far away, Kelly Marie Tran had to step into a casting office and bring Rose Tico to life.

In a new Star Wars featurette, we get a peek behind the scenes at Tran's audition for The Last Jedi and the immediate response of writer-director Rian Johnson. After she tested with Finn actor John Boyega, Johnson said, ""I really, really, really, really like Kelly. She is like Rose stepped up for me. The character that I had in my head when I was writing, it was like she showed up to read."

Of course, Tran didn't know this right away, and she was still a bundle of nerves after her audition. But the video skips forward a year and shows her in costume on the set of The Last Jedi. "So many people wish for something like this," she said. "I still don't believe I'm doing it."

The role of the Resistance maintenance worker with a lot more to offer is definitely a breakthrough for Tran, who had never seen a Star Wars movie until 2015's The Force Awakens. She started out in improv and was mostly known for web shorts including the YouTube series Ladies Like Us. She had small parts on the short-lived NBC series About a Boy and in the Netflix movie XoXo, but Star Wars has a way of launching careers into the stratosphere. Just ask Boyega and Daisy Ridley how things have gone since The Force Awakens.

"It's been such an insane journey," Tran told Entertainment Tonight. She remembers the day she found out she landed the role like it was yesterday. "I had imagined this moment so many times and I thought that I would be ecstatic. I thought that I'd be jumping up and down. But I was just shocked and quiet for maybe a full minute or two."

The Last Jedi is in theaters now and although it had the second-biggest opening weekend ever, fan response has been decidedly mixed.