Kelly Marie Tran keeps lid on film expectations

Kelly Marie Tran is grateful for all her film roles.

The 32-year-old actress played Rose Tico in the 'Star Wars' sequel trilogy but was at the centre of a row over her character's lack of screen time in 'The Rise of Skywalker' – as it was claimed that she was given fewer scenes on purpose – but insists she has no expectations of any role.

Kelly said: "It's hard. I think as an actor you don't really have control over what is happening in a narrative, if that makes sense.

"And I think as an actor and as an individual, I always try to take my expectations out of the situation because I also want to, as much as possible, try and be present in the experience."

The 'Raya and the Last Dragon' star admits that her career progression from comedy shorts to blockbuster movies is "miraculous, nonsensical stuff".

Speaking to Collider, she said: "I am really, really proud of the way that I've been able to show up for myself during this whole journey because, again, if we're going through my journey and my career, I went from sketch comedy and doing improv and indie theatre to then doing 'Star Wars' and then from there doing ('Raya'). It's nonsensical. It's miraculous, nonsensical, magical stuff."

'Star Wars' bosses have previously suggested that Kelly wasn't "deliberately sidelined" in the 2019 movie with screenwriter Chris Terrio saying that they couldn't use footage of the star with the late Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) as the "photorealism" wasn't up to "standard".

He said: "One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie Fisher's footage in the way we wanted to.

"We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia.

"We thought we couldn't leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together ... As the process evolved, a few scenes we'd written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we'd hoped for. Those scenes, unfortunately, fell out of the film."