We suggest a new strategy: Let the Wookiee win.
Wookies may be known for pulling people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose – but that doesn’t mean they’re not extremely huggable!
Nope, you’re not alone in your (completely understandable) life quest to wrap your arms around Chewbacca. In fact, it happened so often on set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that Chewie’s fur began to fall out!
“You can't deny Chewbacca,” Episode VII director J.J. Abrams told ETonline at the D23 Expo. “Whoever would visit the set or be there, even some extras, before the day was over they would go over and embrace Chewbacca. It was an ongoing thing, and one of the casualties was patches of hair on the suit.”
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“I think hugging Chewbacca was probably the most extraordinary moment in my life,” actor Simon Pegg, who was recently revealed to have a role in Episode VII, told ET last month.
The constant hugs meant some incredibly time-consuming repair, however. Abrams told ET that the costume department would spend “weeks at a time” punching in “one hair at a time” on the over-seven-foot costume.
Perhaps the one to blame is lead actor John Boyega, who told ET at the HFPA Grants Banquet that he hugged Chewie a whopping “1,236 times.”
ETonline was with Boyega at the D23 Expo on Saturday, where he revealed he kept set secrets from his own father! Watch below: