Asking a Star Wars fan what inspires them in the space saga is like asking them what inspires them to breathe every single second of every day. Speaking seriously though, I am in love with the philosophy and ideas of the Star Wars Universe. I adore the costumes, the styling and the martial arts. They are very much inspired by samurai, kimonos, Japanese and Far Eastern culture and philosophy as a whole. But what I really, really love about Star Wars and maybe one of the main reasons to pick it specifically is the creative freedom and the freedom in general that it offers.

The character that I cosplayed doesn’t exactly exist in the Star Wars lore, well at least not point for point. Different parts and elements of it do appear in different Star Wars media but I found out about it post factum. What I wanted to do was to take something known and familiar and develop it in a different way, just walk on a path and see where it takes me. Because when it comes to Star wars, the only restriction is the light-saber. When me and my partners in the scene set out to do a cosplay, we wanted to take on something so well-recognized that we could tell a story even without words and still people would get it and get touched by it. After doing Doctor Who the previous year, Star War was a no-brainer and a logical follow-up for me. While I was a judge at the cosplay competition during Japanizam 2015 a couple of months ago in Belgrade, this was what I was looking for in the contestants – not only technique and craftsmanship when it came to the costumes and props, but also the way they told a story through their performance and how they connected to the audience.