J.J. Abrams | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams has revealed Episode IX features previously unknown Force powers that could potentially divide fans.

“It was really important that we not just redo the things you’ve seen, but add new elements—which we knew will infuriate some people and thrill others,” the 53-year-old writer-director told Vanity Fair.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of J.J. Abrams

“Among those things are not just new ways of doing sort of traditional, must-have sequences, whether it’s chases or lightsaber battles, or what have you,” J.J. added. “We wanted to make sure that this picture also showed aspects of the Force in ways that go beyond what you’ve seen before.”

Pictured: J.J. Abrams joining the cast of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – Richard E. Grant, Billy Dee Williams, Keri Russell, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Naomi Ackie, Joonas Suotamo and Anthony Daniels – at the global press conference for the film at the Pasadena Convention Center on Wednesday (December 4) in Pasadena, Calif.

READ MORE: Every ‘Star Wars’ Movie Ranked From Worst to Best, Ahead of Rise of Skywalker’s Release!

FYI: John is wearing Daniel Patrick pants.

The cast of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker have gotten an exclusive treat!

Leading stars – Kelly Marie Tran, director J.J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Keri Russell, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels and Naomi Ackie – got a first-look at the new Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance attraction in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on Monday (December 2) at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif.

The attraction opens tomorrow (December 5) at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida and January 17, 2020, at Disneyland Park in California.

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is one of the most ambitious, advanced and immersive experiences ever undertaken by Walt Disney Imagineering, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality on a scale never seen before in a Disney attraction.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20!

READ MORE: Star Wars’ Finn & Poe Will Not Become Boyfriends in ‘Rise of Skywalker’

It seems like Carrie Fisher knew something no one else did at the time.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams sat down for an interview with Stephen Colbert on Monday night’s (November 25) The Late Show and dished about Carrie‘s lasting impact on the Star Wars films. And it turns out, she somehow knew plenty more than he did about her iconic character Leia’s journey.

Stephen asked Abrams about the fact that he read somewhere that George Lucas had originally intended the third series of Star Wars films to be Leia’s story.

“She was the greatest,” said Abrams about the late Fisher. “And we knew that there was no way that we could finish this Skywalker saga without Leia. It was impossible. And we knew we’d never want to do a digital Leia and of course couldn’t recast it.”

“I remembered we had these scenes that we had shot in The Force Awakens that we’d never used, which at the time I was really upset that we weren’t using them because it was Carrie and it was Leia and how do you not use them? But it just didn’t work in the movie. And weirdly, those scenes were material that we 100 percent realized that could be used to tell her story in this film,” J.J. continued. “So every time you’re seeing Leia in scenes with characters it’s Carrie in this movie. And I still can’t quite believe that she’s gone, because we’ve been working on these scenes in editorial and she’s as there as anyone. It’s really uncanny.”

Oddly, Carrie Fisher left a message in her book, “The Princess Diarist,” for Abrams before she passed away: “I wasn’t supposed to work on this film, and she passed away before The Last Jedi was released, and she wrote this book,” he said. “She thanked me at the very end, she says, ‘Special thanks to J.J. Abrams, for putting up with me twice.’ And I had never worked with her before The Force Awakens and I wasn’t supposed to direct Episode IX.”

Lastly, Stephen asked J.J. Abrams to identify which Star Wars theories are true and which are rubbish – Watch after the cut!

READ MORE: J.J. Abrams Reveals How ‘Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker’ Script Ended Up on eBay

Click inside to watch the rest of J.J. Abrams’ appearance on The Late Show…More Here! »

A copy of the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker script briefly appeared on eBay?!?

While making an appearance on Good Morning America on Sunday (November 24) in New York City, director J.J. Abrams revealed that a real script found its way onto the e-commerce site.

“One of our actors, I won’t say which one — I want to, but I won’t — left it under their bed and it was found by someone who was cleaning their place,” Abrams told the audience. “And it was given to someone else, who then went to sell it on eBay.”

J.J. revealed that somebody who works at Disney saw the item up for sale and bought it so they “got it back before it sold. With all those security, you gotta be careful.”

J.J. Abrams also notes the film was just completed and debuts a brand new clip – Watch the interview here!

READ MORE: J.J. Abrams Admits ‘So Much Is Still Being Worked On’ Ahead of ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Release Date

The Star Wars cast is on three special covers of the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, hitting newsstands on Friday (November 22).

Here’s what the cast and crew had to say…

J.J. Abrams on production: “We always knew we were going to have three fewer months to post-production this film….. So much is still being worked on. It’s literally a practical race to get it finished…the [trailers] that have come out are scratching the surface of what the movie is.”

Daisy Ridley on Rey: “Rey is driving her own thing. She’s not doing what other people are telling her to do…it’s a heavy story for Rey….There were days where I was literally like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can, like, reach that emotion again.’”

J.J. Abrams on Princess Leia and the passing of Carrie Fisher: “Saying Leia had passed away, or that she was off somewhere else, felt like a cheat. Then I remembered we had these scenes that we hadn’t used from Episode VII. It was like finding this impossible answer to this impossible question. Suddenly we had classic Carrie in these amazing moments. So when you see her in the movie, it’s her, she’s there. It’s not like there’s some crazy digital trickery. She’s just in the movie.”

For more from the cast, head to EW.com.

J.J. Abrams is opening up about the late Carrie Fisher, and her participation in the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The 53-year-old director spoke at Disney’s D23 Expo on Saturday (August 24) in Anaheim, Calif.

“The character of Leia is really, in a way, the heart of this story. When we were talking about this story we realized we could not possibly tell the end of these nine films without Leia,” he explained to the crowd, adding that they used unused footage of Carrie from The Force Awakens.

“We realized we could use [it] in a new way so Carrie, as Leia, gets to be in the film…she was almost sort of supernaturally witty and magical in a way.”

He then revealed he was inspired by something prophetic she wrote in her book, The Princess Diarist.

“‘And special thanks to J.J. Abrams for putting up with me twice.’ Now, I had never worked with her before The Force Awakens and I wasn’t supposed to do this movie, so it was a classic Carrie thing to sort of write something like that and it could only mean one thing for me. And I could not be more excited to have you see her in her final performance,” he said.

Click here to see the newly unveiled poster for The Rise of Skywalker!

Carrie Fisher and Billie Lourd are going to be reunited on film in the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Director J.J. Abrams confirmed that the two will be on-screen together in an interview with Vanity Fair.

“It was a bizarre kind of left side/right side of the brain sort of Venn diagram thing, of figuring out how to create the puzzle based on the pieces we had,” he said of using unused footage of Carrie from her appearance in The Force Awakens.

At first, he explained, he wrote Billie out of the scenes – but Billie insisted in being in them.

“And so, there are moments where they’re talking; there are moments where they’re touching. There are moments in this movie where Carrie is there, and I really do feel there is an element of the uncanny, spiritual, you know, classic Carrie, that it would have happened this way, because somehow it worked. And I never thought it would.”