The Kylo Ren challenge is now a thing. And it’s all thanks to the help of singer-songwriter John Mayer, who is apparently a huge Star Wars fan. In the new Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, there is a scene that involves Kylo Ren, portrayed by Adam Driver, speaking to protagonist Rey without a shirt and wearing a pair of high-waisted knickers.
Mayer, who seems to have enjoyed the movie, posted a picture of himself shirtless and wearing a pair of Kylo Ren-inspired trousers with the caption #KyloRenChallenge.
Many people thought Driver’s shirtless moment was a pretty random addition to the Star Wars film. But the director of the box office success felt that the “beefcake” moment was necessary. “It’s all about those Force connection scenes,” The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, explaining why the shirtless scene was included, told People in an interview. “The keyword being intimacy. And the idea that this was a way to just, why not step that up? The idea that, what’s even more uncomfortable having a conversation face to face with a person you don’t want to, is if they’re half-naked during it, while you’re having to do it. And so it was just another way of kind of disrobing Kylo literally and figuratively a little bit more, and pushing that sense of these conversations becoming increasingly more intimate.”
Also, Driver just looked good. “Adam looks so damn good because he’d been training hardcore for the past six months for those fight scenes,” Johnson continued. “I’m like, ‘Eh. He looks so good. We should put him up there.’” Some Star Wars fans followed Mayer’s lead and posted their own #KyloRenChallenge on Instagram.
