- Actress Lupita Nyong'o plays Maz Kanata in the new "Star Wars" trilogy.
- Before landing the role, she underwent an elaborate process in order to read the script.
- Nyong'o said she was on vacation in Morocco when the opportunity came up.
- Disney sent an assistant to her hotel with the script locked inside a "contraption."
- "I had a certain number of hours to read the script and the assistant was just waiting," she told The Hollywood Reporter.
When Lupita Nyong'o was first asked to join the cast of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," she was vacationing in Morocco. But that didn't stop director J.J. Abrams from getting the super-secret script into her hands.
"An assistant was flown to my hotel, with a script in a locked contraption," Nyong'o recently told The Hollywood Reporter. "It looked like something out of 'Star Wars.' And he made me sign something and gave me instructions."
Disney and LucasFilm had tight security when it came to "The Force Awakens" details. The scripts were even printed on red paper, since since the colored pages would come out as all-black on a regular photocopier.
"I had a certain number of hours to read the script, and the assistant was just waiting — waiting in Morocco for me to finish reading so that he could put it in that locked thing and take it back," Nyong'o said.
Once Nyong'o was officially brought onto the project, she filmed scenes for "The Force Awakens" while wearing motion-capture (or mo-cap) gear. The process of getting her into the suit and ready for filming reportedly took two full hours.
After her larger role in "The Force Awards," Nyong'o made a brief cameo as Maz in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." She told THR she doesn't know yet if she's returning for the third and final movie in the franchise (which will once again be helmed by director J.J. Abrams).
For more on Nyongo's life and career, you can read the full THR profile here.
Sign up here to get INSIDER's favorite stories straight to your inbox.
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Here's how the map of the United States has changed in 200 years