This Last Jedi Cast Member Really Doesn't Like Porgs

The tiny, squeaking Porgs of Star Wars: The Last Jedi certainly aren't everyone's proverbial cup of tea–including a member of the cast. 

The Last Jedi writer and director Rian Johnson, along with a handful of the film's actors, made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Friday night, where the contentious topic of the Porgs was brought up. Kimmel pulled out an animatronic Porg toy and asked Johnson if he had any fears about people not liking the creature when they first saw it. "Were you worried that maybe this would [not] be received [well]? Like, I remember the Ewoks not being received particularly well. I think people look back on them now fondly, [but] were you worried at all that this would be too cute?" Kimmel questioned. 

Johnson responded that he got his first inkling of a negative reaction when he brought the Porg puppets out on set and "half the crew would be like, 'Oh, that's so adorable and half the crew would be kind of giving it the side-eye a little bit."

"Who didn't like it? The Porg?" Kimmel asked, turning his attention to the cast in the chairs behind Johnson. 

None other than John Boyega, who plays the morally conflicted Stormtrooper Finn in the current trilogy, raised his hand. 

"I just naturally don't like 'em," said Boyega, causing the audience to laugh. He doubled down on his disdain for the feathered creatures, though, stating, "I don't. I was on the [Millennium] Falcon and there was a hole and then there was like all little Porgs bunched together and then there were big ones... they had the puppets blinking and all that kind of stuff. I'm not into it."

Boyega's closest co-star, on the other hand, made it explicitly clear that he is a fan of the newest Star Wars critters. Oscar Isaac, the actor behind the charismatic pilot Poe Dameron, quipped, "I love the Porgs. I'm pro Porg!" 

Andy Serkis, who plays Supreme Leader Snoke, then joked that he wanted to portray a Porg through motion capture. "I actually said to Rian, 'Look, I mean, Snoke is fine, but can you please allow me to play at least one scene as a Porg?' And we went, we talked through the storyline, but it just didn't evolve in the way that thought it might," Serkis said. 

As for how the Porgs actually came to be and what they really are, Johnson previously explained that the creatures are native to the planet of Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has been living in solitude until Rey (Daisy Ridley) shows up to receive Jedi training. The scenes on Ahch-To were filmed on the Skelling Islands just off the coast of Ireland, which are filled with tiny puffins–the base inspiration for the Porgs. 

"If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it's just covered in puffins, and they're the most adorable things in the world," Johnson said. "So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, 'Oh, these are part of the island.' And so the Porgs are in that realm."

The Porgs will make their big screen debut when Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released on December 15.