Lupita Nyong'o brings Maz Kanata to life in behind-the-scenes Star Wars footage

Although she didn't have a lot of screen time in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maz Kanata still managed to leave a memorable impression. The thousand-year-old smuggler was a delightful new addition to the Star Wars universe, and she featured in some of the film's most important moments.

You may not have recognised her, but the character was brought to life by Lupita Nyong'o. The 12 Years a Slave actress took to her Twitter page recently to share a behind-the-scenes clip from The Force Awakens Blu-ray, which gives us a sneak peek into her motion capture performance. Check it out below...

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The clip gives us some insight into ILM's impressive effects work; to quote visual effects supervisor Ben Morris, it allowed Nyong'o to "actually perform as a normal human, which suddenly released her". In addition to plenty of other juicy secrets, we'll hopefully get to see more of Kanata in action in The Force Awakens Blu-ray next month.

Directed by JJ Abrams and starring Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, and Adam Driver, Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available to digital download on April 11, 2016, and out on DVD and Blu-Ray on April 5, 2016 in the US and April 18, 2016 in the UK.

Images: Disney/Lucasfilm

Amon Warmann

Amon is a contributing editor and columnist for Empire magazine, but is also a Film and TV writer for GamesRadar+, Total Film, and others. He has also written for NME, Composer Mag, and more, along with being a film critic for TalkSport. He is also the co-host of the Fade to Black Podcast, and a video mashup creator. Can also do a pretty good Bane impersonation.