In the Star Wars universe we know Riz Ahmed as Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook, a defector who ultimately sacrificed his life alongside rebel fighters in the Battle of Scarif.

But his original character in Rogue One was initially very different to the Bodhi we all came to love and root for.

When Riz first signed up for the film, he was set to play Bokan, a kidnapped engineer for Saw Gerrera who had developed a kind of Stockholm syndrome.

Bokan, described as "crazed and imprisoned" by Entertainment Weekly, was supposed to live on a planet with a strong electromagnetic field, meaning that the electronics he worked with were always broken.

Despite Bodhi's development away from the "lost" Bokan, Rogue One's director Gareth Edwards admitted that Bokan's "underlying concept" still remained in Bodhi Rook.

"[Bodhi] wasn't brave at the start but found bravery in the end... We thought it would be stronger if he wasn't Saw Gerrera's guy, but instead he knew Galen [Erso]," Gareth said.

"Those sorts of things changed, but the desire for them feels similar."

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Riz has also praised the film's diversity, saying that it "made sense" for Rogue One's cast to reflect its audience – but added that it still felt "weird" that such a cast hadn't been seen before.

"Maybe in some ways it is unusual for a big, tentpole movie to have a cast as diverse as this – an action movie notably headed up by a woman," he told Digital Spy when the movie was released.

"But I think in many ways, even though it may not have been done very frequently up until now, now that it has been done, it feels weird that it hasn't been up until this point."

From: Digital Spy