Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi can be found throughout this article. If you haven't caught the movie yet, this is definitely not the article for you!
Star Wars: The Last Jedi was not without its casualties. The movie took us by surprise when Kylo Ren took out Snoke in the throne room before he and Rey took out a slew of Snoke's minions. And the movie ended on a somewhat bittersweet note, as Luke Skywalker became one with The Force. However, if you ask Domhnall Gleeson, who played Hux in the Star Wars movies, if he thought early on his character would have had a chance at surviving, his answer would be no. The actor recently revealed why he was surprised Hux lived on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, saying,
I'll be honest, I was very surprised that I survived. I kind of imagined myself getting blown up in a ship pretty early on. Spoiler alert, I suppose. There's also this moment where Ren is on the ground, and it looks like maybe I'll finish him. It's like, what state would the franchise be in if like Snoke and Ren are gone? And it's just Hux going right. Can you imagine how annoyed people would've been?
Compared to a lot of the heroes in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and at least a couple of the villains, General Hux is small potatoes, so it's easy to see why he assumed he was going to get killed off in the second of the three Star Wars movies. In fact, Captain Phasma, who arguably has earned more press for her villainous role, was presumably killed off during The Last Jedi, as was Snoke, who was expected to be the big baddie in the lead-up to the flick's release. The fact that Hux was even given a potential moment where if he had acted a bit more swiftly he could have taken out Kylo Ren was also pretty incredible, and Domhnall Gleeson seems to know it. Ultimately, however, General Hux did not take out Kylo Ren and has lived on and will presumably be around to make a few more snarky comments in Star Wars Episode IX.
Happy Sad Confused also jokes that in that case Star Wars Episode IX would have to be subtitled The Rise of Hux, and Domhnall Gleeson admits the third movie would be a "very different thing" had that decision been made.
As it stands, we'll keep you updated if Hux is back for round three, which will hit theaters on December 20, 2019. In the meantime, Lucasfilm and Disney are still working on new Star Wars projects, and Solo: A Star Wars Story will hit theaters this May. For a full look at all of the Star Wars projects in the works, take a look at our full guide.
