Supreme Leader Snoke, leader of the First Order and main villain of Star Wars Episode VIII and IX, was reportedly modeled on the face of late actor Peter Cushing. Cushing is much adored by Star Wars fans for his portrayal as Grand Moff Tarkin, who served as one of the Empire’s chief enforcers alongside Darth Vader in A New Hope. Tarkin became infamous for ordering the destruction of the plane Alderaan using the Death Star’s superlaser, and was killed at the end of the first film after Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star. Despite Cushing passing away in 1994, his character has since reappeared several times in canon and non-canon Star Wars media. Among others, these include the animated series The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch, as well as in his own novel Tarkin, which details the character’s rise to power through the Empire’s ranks.
In recent years, Cushing has seemingly portrayed Tarkin from beyond the grave, appearing in 2016’s Rogue One through the use of facial CGI that was able to model Cushing’s face onto another person’s body. Although Tarkin’s appearance in Rogue One was brief, it was a significant one within wider Star Wars lore, as we watch him overseeing the Death Star’s first attack on the rebellion when it destroyed the Holy City of the planet Jedha. The same software that producers used to bring Cushing’s character back into the Star Wars universe was also used to replicate Carrie Fisher in her role as Princess Leia when she appears as a young version of herself at the end of Rogue One.
Now, it seems that Cushing lives on in the Star Wars universe even outside of his character of Tarkin. While appearing on the Force Material podcast, the designer and sculptor of Snoke for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ivan Manzella, said that the Supreme Leader was partially modeled after Cushing. Manzella explained that Cushing became his reference point when director JJ Abrams gave him information to begin designing the character:
“JJ [Abrams] mentioned a Hammer ‘House of Horror’ doll. So I based him on Peter Cushing...when I did the maquette, there are elements in the cheekbone and profile. It wasn’t meant to be Cushing, but he was my Hammer reference.”
While it has since been proven untrue by the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Snoke’s modeling on Cushing offers an interesting link to a previous fan theory. This theory argued that, since Tarkin was never explicitly shown dying in A New Hope, he could have escaped the Death Star’s destruction and later become Snoke, the villain of the sequel trilogy. This idea is strengthened when Tarkin’s previous experience, which gives him a unique understanding of running an Empire and of dealing with force-sensitive beings, is taken into account. Furthermore, Snoke’s burnt and scarred body could merely reflect the injuries Tarkin sustained during the Death Star’s destruction. While fans later discovered that Snoke was in fact merely a puppet for the resurrected Emperor Palpatine, Manzella’s comments add an interesting and exciting new element to one of the main theories that emerged in the wake of The Force Awakens.
What Manzella’s comments also show is the lasting legacy of one of the most iconic actors ever to appear in Star Wars, whose influence is still clearly felt in the design and portrayal of characters even outside of his own. Despite Tarkin appearing in only one of the original trilogy of Star Wars films, his dominant performance was enough that both fans and film crew alike still consider him relevant enough to influence both their theories and design choices. Extraordinarily, Cushing’s influence on Manzella’s design of Snoke shows the actor’s influence continues to remain strong, even to this day.
Source: Force Material