Gwendoline Christie Is Returning to Star Wars

Gwendoline Christie will be back for the next Star Wars film due in 2017, she confirmed to People at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday. The Game of Thrones actress, who plays female stormtrooper Captain Phasma in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, said she campaigned hard for the role, which was initially written as male.

How Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie went from Lady Knight to a sci-fi star

"I was delighted when J.J. Abrams wanted to have me in the film and then wanted to cast me in this role that had originally been designed for a man," Christie told People. "I felt it encouraged diversity and it was doing something new and it was an interesting bit of casting for women, and I hope that in something that was such a mainstream success, it would breed more of those kind of opportunities for other women."

Star Wars: Episode VIII is scheduled to hit theaters on Dec. 15, 2017.