Joonas Suotamo
Joonas Suotamo is an actor, born 1986.
Joonas Suotamo played professional basketball before he played a Wookiee. He is Finnish, born in Espoo in 1986, and his size got him hired as Peter Mayhew's body double on Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, with Mayhew still holding the credit. From The Last Jedi onward the part was simply his, and he carried it through Solo: A Star Wars Story and The Rise of Skywalker.
Taking over a costume performance from the man who invented it is an unusual acting problem. There is no dialogue, the face is a mask, and the audience knows the character's body language better than it knows most human actors' faces. Suotamo's answer was fidelity first: the posture, the lope, the way Chewbacca leans into a doorway are Mayhew's. What he added was a slightly younger physicality, which mattered most in Solo, where the character sits decades earlier in his own life.
He has stayed in the same specialism since, playing the Scourge in Willow, the Wookiee Jedi Kelnacca in The Acolyte, and Lurch in the second season of Wednesday. It is a narrow career by design, and he is very close to the only person doing it.
Movies (5)
TV (3)
Where to start with Joonas Suotamo
Solo: A Star Wars Story is the one to watch for him specifically. It is the only film in the run that treats Chewbacca as a character with a history rather than as furniture, and the physical performance has to carry scenes that would otherwise need dialogue.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is his first outing as the sole performer and the best showcase for the comic timing the suit allows. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is worth a look afterwards, if only to try to spot which shots are his. The Acolyte gives him a Wookiee who is not Chewbacca, which is more interesting than it sounds, and Wednesday finally moves him into another franchise's makeup chair. Willow is for completists.