Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker actor responds to Chewbacca fan theory

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's Joonas Suotamo has seemingly confirmed a fan theory regarding Chewbacca's Medal of Bravery.

In JJ Abrams' latest space-opera, the beloved Wookiee was finally handed his reward by Maz Kanata (via Leia Organa) for his heroic services to the Rebel cause – ending a 42-year wait.

Chatting to The Hollywood Reporter, the 6 foot 11 inch performer agreed with the idea that the medal originally belonged to someone very close to him.

Related: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's final line was decided "pretty early on"

Although admitting "nobody told [him] whose medal it was", Joonas noted "it would make sense" for it to be Han Solo's: "I'm thinking it was Han's."

Asked about his first reaction to reading this significant scene, the Chewie actor remembered: "I was celebrating. It was the greatest thing. The whole ending weaves together all the storylines one last time, and it was wonderful to see that happen.

"It was also great to have the Maz character do it because Chewie and Maz seem to have this history together. Hopefully, we'll learn something more about that in the future on some other story, but, yeah, I just really enjoyed how that played out."

So did we.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is out now.

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Dan Seddon

Reporter, Digital Spy 

Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment. 

In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.