Adam Driver as Ben Solo, vividly lit in contrasting cool blues, warm oranges, and bright yellows, hair in damp spiky tendrils, brow gently knitted above a hopeful, distant gaze, mouth set softly, chin lifted in gentle defiance above a confident chest, strong shoulders held wide.
There are certain fandom moments that get burned vividly into your memory; you will always remember where you were when you first heard the news. In the case of THE HUNT FOR BEN SOLO, I was just getting home from my weekly grocery run on 20 Oct 2025 when my phone started to blow up with notifications from a dear friend of mine. I parked the car, opened up the article she had linked for me, and learned that Adam Driver, bless him, is definitely still Ben Solo's number one fan.
To say that I ran the gamut of emotions that day is an understatement. Shock, vindication, joy, and such an intense grief.
Shock, that Adam would talk about this project and why it was dead with such frankness. He never, EVER, says anything even the slightest bit critical about anyone he works with. At most he'll hint at less than perfect past experiences, but never with any identifying details. I was gobsmacked that he dropped all those names.
Vindication, for my firm belief that Adam would play Ben again in a heartbeat, that all Lucasfilm had to do was give him a good script and director. He'd said as much in an interview, without naming any specific franchise. Learning that I was right when I thought that the reason for his vagueness and relative radio silence on the subject was not due to a lack of interest, but rather it's opposite; he was bound so tightly by an NDA that he didn't dare breathe a word of his passion project to the public.
Joy, to know that Kathleen Kennedy had reached out to Adam. Joy that he cared so much that he spent two years working on how to bring Ben back, that he basically wrote his own fix-it fic concept, and then worked to find the best people to help him bring those ideas to fruition.
And grief, such intense grief, to know just how close we were to getting what we'd hoped for, only to have all that hard work, careful thought, and preparation dismissed at the last possible minute by close-minded executives playing corporate politics.
It really was a lot like finally meeting Ben Solo, only to lose him less than 10 minutes later, all over again.
But despite that grief, I also, weirdly, feel hope.
Officially, THE HUNT FOR BEN SOLO is dead; that's why Adam and Steven Soderbergh can talk about it. But there's a completed script, purchased by Lucasflim, that was fully greenlit, with a tentative schedule and everything; while they'll need to go back to the drawing board to reset the timeline for shooting, a huge amount of the legwork is already done. And we know Adam wants to be a part of making it.
After 10 plus years as an a-list actor, Adam is no stranger to the media game; he knew that he was dropping a bomb with that interview. This was not a casual anecdote, shared lightly, without consideration for the consequences.
It may be he simply wanted to set the record straight, to be sure the world knows how much that character meant to him.
But I'm choosing to believe that this was also his way of passing the torch to us, knowing just how passionate SW fans can be. That he was hoping we'd take it up, and use the power of public pressure to do what he could not while bound to an NDA's silence. He's given this his best shot, and failed, and now it our turn to try.
So I picked up my stylus and made the first Ben Solo art I've made in years. I chose to modify a portrait I'd already done, one that already called Ben to mind because of the Byronic, yearning, hopeful essence of it.
I was inspired by Adam's thoughts in the behind-the-scenes interview he gave about developing Ben's character, and how he was different from Kylo Ren; asking the question, "Who is Ben, then?" to which his answer was, "Someone who has hope."
Photo used for reference was taken by Mario Sorrenti in mid-September 2019 for the 2024 Burberry Hero fragrance campaign.
I'd tell you how long it took if I actually knew. The base painting I started with was 32.5 hours of work, and I went from there. The idea hit me sometime after dinner, and I ended up working on it until 2:30am, despite fighting a terrible cold. I knew what I wanted to see, but it took me hours to figure out how to get where I wanted to go; changing the background and the lighting on his face, adding the sweater, and tweaking color gradient maps (let's hear it for layer masks), and I didn't think to take work in progress shots because honestly this kind of progress is extremely non-linear. The colors I chose for those maps are a reference both to the last time we saw Ben, in that cold, grim cathedral on Exegol, contrasted with the bright warmth of a new day, hope and light and life. Also I just really love a good complementary color scheme.
A last thought before I go; this is being posted on 19 Nov 2025, which marks Adam's 42nd birthday. It's my sincerest wish that this day, when he turns the age of the answer to life, the universe, and everything, be exactly how he wants it to be, however that looks for him, and that this next year traveling around the sun brings him all the best of everything that it can. Thank you, Adam, for telling us about your no-longer-secret passion project. Thank you for giving us a solid reason to hope that we might see Ben Solo again soon, if only we can convince The Powers That Be to reconsider their myopic decision. Ben Solo LIVES, let the hunt for him begin, and may the Force be with us all.
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