‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Star Ravi Cabot-Conyers Talks FaceTiming Tom Holland on Set and How Gin Blossoms Influenced His Role
[This story contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.]
At 13, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew star Ravi Cabot-Conyers is an old soul. He was not only introduced to Star Wars by way of the original trilogy, but his desire to act was born out of his parents’ decision to share the 1966 Batman series with him at an early age. On top of that, he was raised in a household that appreciates the art of jazz, ensuring that a variety of musical instruments were always at his disposal. So, hats off to Christina Cabot and Charles Conyers for feeding Ravi a media diet that is refreshingly unconventional for Gen Alpha. (Cabot, whose father Joe was an accomplished trumpeter, played Major Kathleen Sparr in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.)
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‘90s music also factored into Cabot-Conyers’ preparation for the role of Wim on the Jon Watts and Christopher Ford-created Skeleton Crew. As established in the Watts-directed series premiere, Wim is raised by his single father, Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe), on At Attin, an uncharacteristically suburban corner of the Star Wars galaxy. Not much is known about Wim’s mother’s whereabouts at this point, and it sounds like the Disney+ series is going to let the mystery be. Regardless, Cabot-Conyers still addressed that unseen maternal relationship during his prep work for the now well-received series.
“Honestly, we really don’t know [what happened to Wim’s mother],” Cabot-Conyers tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I have some theories, and part of my preparation process was making a playlist of music that Wim and his mother might have listened to together. It was just to give me an idea of their dynamic. So Gin Blossoms’ ‘Follow You Down’ was a huge one for me. I would always think about it.”
Much to the chagrin of his father, Wim has a touch of Peter Pan syndrome, in that he doesn’t want to part with bedtime stories and his Jedi/Sith action figures just yet. And, instead of focusing on career assessment, he yearns for adventure like Luke Skywalker once did. But he soon gets his wish when he accidentally takes flight in a lost starship with his best friend, Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), and schoolmates Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and KB (Kyriana Kratter).
Cabot-Conyers may have been an 11-year-old working actor at the time of filming, but he still made sure there was plenty of play off camera, as well. Sparing no detail, he dressed up like Watts for Halloween, and he even started a set trend of making facial hair out of gaffer tape. Watts also rehired a number of his collaborators from his Tom Holland-led Spider-Man trilogy, including his second unit director and stunt coordinator, George Cottle. The latter then decided to give Cabot-Conyers and Smith a thrill they’ll never forget.
“Robert was like, ‘What was it like working with Tom Holland?’ And George Cottle was like, ‘You want me to call him and find out?’ So we called him, and I was so excited. I’ve always admired Tom, and I’m a huge fan. George and Tom were so nice to us that day,” Cabot-Conyers recalls. “Tom was actually on [another] set when we called him, so it was really funny. George actually said that we picked up on stunts faster than Tom did, which was also really funny.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Cabot-Conyers also discusses his short film, Hari and the Empty Space, which Skeleton Crew executive producer Jon Favreau encouraged him to pursue.
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Star Wars has been around for nearly 50 years, and so people are now discovering it in different ways. What was your introduction?
My initial introduction was through my dad. He’s been watching Star Wars for as long as he can remember, and he saw [Star Wars: A New Hope] as a kid in the theaters for the first time with his brother. He then showed me A New Hope when I was about five, and I was immediately hooked because of Luke Skywalker. He really stood out to me and really resonated with me. I love Mark Hamill’s performance. It’s so iconic and intentional, and I’ve always really loved lightsabers. So I’m a huge fan, and it’s always been a huge part of my life. It also has such a huge legacy, which was a little intimidating when I first found out that I was going to be leading Skeleton Crew. But I still really enjoyed it.
And what led you to start acting at such a young age?
My mom [Christina Cabot] was an acting coach, and she and my dad introduced me to the ‘66 Batman show. Of course, I loved it. I was obsessed. I loved all the fight scenes. I thought they were very cool, and I would act out all of the miscellaneous side characters. They were the most interesting to me because of their little one-liners. So they were always really funny to me, and I would act them out. I would also tag along to my mom’s classes when she would coach. So I was around two when I started performing for my family in my living room. I then had my first audition when I was about four, and I’ve loved developing my craft ever since.
Skeleton Crew probably used a code name during casting, so when did you figure out you were auditioning for Star Wars?
I didn’t figure it out for a while. It was originally called Untitled something-something, and my code name was Wyatt, I think. I didn’t even know it was Disney, but I figured it out about a week before my director session. That’s when I went on a call with Jon Watts. So we didn’t figure it out for a while, and then the scripts had the code name Grammar Rodeo because of the Simpsons episode.
How many callbacks and hoops did you have to jump through until Wim was yours?
There were no callbacks. There was an audition, a director session and then chemistry reads, so it wasn’t too much. I then found out in January 2022.
How’d you celebrate the good news?
I screamed for about 30 seconds right after my mom told me. My dad was in the other room, so I burst through the doors and was like, “I got the job!” We were all so excited for so long.
Wim refuses to grow up. He still wants to play with nondescript Jedi and Sith action figures rather than focus on his future career. Did you relate to what he’s going through at all?
Yeah, I don’t really want to grow up either. There were so many things about Wim that felt familiar to me, and that was definitely one of them. I love playing with action figures like Wim does, so I’ve always related to Wim in one way or another. I love his relationship with his dad in particular.
You had this high-profile professional job on a Star Wars show, but you were still having fun on set by dressing up as Jon Watts for Halloween or making mustaches out of gaffer tape. Were you trying to balance the work-play ratio?
Yeah, definitely. On any job, I feel like there always needs to be room left for fun, and I always try to make that happen. That is actually what I loved about Jude [Law]. He was very helpful in terms of finding a good balance between the two. I also just loved connecting with everybody and having fun together. There was a huge crew, and we all felt so comfortable and intimate within the first month. So we all loved pulling funny little shenanigans like that.
What did Jon Watts think of your Jon Watts costume?
I surprised him in his office, and it was so funny. He has a very distinctive outfit that he wears on set, and the one day that I wore it for Halloween, he, of course, wasn’t wearing it. But it was really funny because he wasn’t expecting me to walk into his office while dressed up as him. So there was a lot of laughing about that.
Jon Favreau encouraged you to make a short film called Hari and the Empty Space?
Yeah, he did. One day, in between shots, I had a meeting with Jon Favreau and his partner Karen Gilchrist. We talked about filmmaking and the whole shebang. So I am really grateful that they did that because I’ve learned so much from [the short]. I’m still working on it, but the whole process has been a learning experience in and of itself. It’s definitely been difficult, but it’s worth it.
Jude’s character has to look after the four lost kids in an unconventional way, so did Jude also look after the four of you as actors?
Honestly, it was everybody, including Jude. He really felt like a mentor while also being so focused on his character.
Wim has a lot in common with Fern. They’re both raised by demanding single parents, and they both take their best friend for granted at times. Wim didn’t ask Neel how assessment went; he broke his promise to him about not getting in trouble. Fern also dismisses KB’s good advice at different points. Do you see it that way?
I definitely do. I loved playing Wim’s dynamic with Fern, and I love how similar the two characters are, as they’re both going through a similar situation. Wim’s dad is very strict and very protective, and he doesn’t give as much freedom to Wim as he’d like. He thinks Wim is too old for bedtime stories, and Wim is upset about that. That is part of what feeds into his motivation to want to go off-world.
She’s referenced when Wim asks his dad to read him a bedtime story, but can you say what happened to Wim’s mother? Or is that a story point for later in the show?
Honestly, we really don’t know. I’ve always had a lot of fun imagining what might’ve happened. I have some theories, and part of my preparation process was making a playlist of music that Wim and his mother might have listened to together. It was just to give me an idea of their dynamic. Gin Blossoms’ “Follow You Down” was a huge one for me. I would always think about it. It’s one of my favorites.
The four kids wind up on an out-of-commission starship, and they unintentionally fly off into hyperspace. The ship’s droid, SM-33 (Nick Frost), thinking they’re pirates, then takes them to Port Borgo where all the pirates hang out. What was the coolest part of that set for you?
Of course, it wasn’t as big as it seems on the show, but it was still really huge. I loved working in the Volume, and there was a diverse amount of props that gave it some dimension. They made it feel even more realistic, so you couldn’t really tell what was the Volume and what wasn’t. David Lowery directed that episode, and I loved watching him being in awe of all the puppets and the aliens. There were also some very interesting noodles that we encountered during our journey, and they were very gross-looking.
To Wim, At Attin is this boring place that he couldn’t wait to leave, but to everybody else beyond the barrier, it’s this mythic lost planet of eternal treasure. Were you quite surprised when you first read how important his home planet actually is?
Yeah, I was! At the beginning, we follow Wim’s perspective and his take on the planet, and because the audience is in Wim’s mind, it’s also this boring suburb to them. So it makes sense that a kid would want to leave that place, but then you find out that it really is this mysterious mythic planet with all this lost treasure. It surprises you. Funnily enough, I did suspect it a little bit after reading the script a couple times, and I mentioned it to Jon during that first call that I’d started to get a little bit of a hint.
It was also a clever way to explain why we’ve never seen suburbia in Star Wars until now.
Definitely!
Let’s go through each of your directors and just name the first qualities you think of during your time together on set. Besides his aforementioned uniform, what comes to mind when you think about working with Jon Watts?
He’s so intentional. He was also one of the co-writers, so he knows what he wants. And he’s always comical. He’s very caring and compassionate about the people in the production, and he’s laser-focused, too. I’d look over at him as he was watching playback on the monitors, and it was always very funny. I’d sometimes go join him.
What else caught your attention about David Lowery?
You can really tell how experienced he is. In preparation for Skeleton Crew, I watched Peter Pan and Wendy, and I loved it. Again, he was just in awe of everything going on around him.
What about Bryce Dallas Howard?
Bryce is so generous, so kind and so talented. She’s also an actor, and so it’s very evident that she knows what she’s doing as both an actor and director. All of her directing methods are so useful and so practical. She worked on several episodes of The Mandalorian, so she was so experienced in terms of working in the Volume. It was really helpful to work with someone like her.
Lee Isaac Chung, oh my gosh, was so amazing and supportive and helpful. I really loved his [penultimate] episode too. He’s so grounded and comfortable, and it was clear how much fun he was having with us. I really admired that.
The Daniels …
The Daniels were so fun, talented and lighthearted. They did little warmups with us before we started shooting, and we had lunch with them to get to know them first. I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I was shocked by it. Oh my gosh, it was awesome.
And Jake Schreier …
Jake has a very cool episode [105]. He is so particular, and he’s really cooperative. Like Jon, he’s compassionate, and he really knows how to work with people.
The second unit director and supervising stunt coordinator, George Cottle, FaceTimed Tom Holland on set one day. They worked together on all of Watts’ Spider-Man movies. Was he just trying to do something cool for you guys?
Robert [Timothy Smith] is a huge fan of Jon’s Spider-Man stuff, as am I. But Robert, in particular, was like, “What was it like working with Tom Holland?” And George Cottle was like, “You want me to call him and find out?” So we called him, and I was so excited. I’ve always admired Tom, and I’m a huge fan. I’ve loved everything that he’s done. So George and Tom were so nice to us that day. Tom was actually on [another] set when we called him, so it was really funny. George actually said that we picked up on stunts faster than Tom did, which was also really funny. (Laughs)
In the third episode, Jude’s character makes some food in a pot for everybody. What was used on the day?
It was some form of oatmeal, but there was definitely some additional stuff added.
That’s relatively consistent with Wim’s cereal in the first episode. His blue milk didn’t look exactly like the blue milk we’ve seen in the past. Maybe it was the color grading. Were they still calling it blue milk at the time?
Yeah, it may not have looked blue on screen, but it was very blue on the day. I was very excited to get to drink that. It had a very interesting taste, but it was a lot of fun.
When Jude’s character Force-pulled the key into the jail cell, did the crew have the key sliding on a thin wire?
Yeah, it was on a wire, which was very cool. I actually managed to tune out the wire, so, to my eyes, it looked like someone was using the Force right in front of me.
What’s been the highlight of your press tour so far?
Honestly, it’s been hearing how much everyone loves what we’ve created and worked so hard on. Another highlight is finally being able to talk about it. We wrapped production almost two years ago, so it’s been hard not talking about it until now. During the tour, Jon Watts said that he felt like a big little kid working on this, and I just loved hearing him say that.
Well, after three episodes, I can’t wait to see the rest of the series.
You’re going to love it.
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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is now airing weekly on Disney+.
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