Laura Dern is one of the new characters we’re going to be introduced to in The Last Jedi. Not much was known about her except for her purple hair and that she goes by Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. A new cover feature from Entertainment Weekly sheds a bit of light on who Holdo is. She’s part of a cover feature opposite Resistance fighter Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and comes with the headline “Can Poe get along with his new boss?” The story delves a bit deeper into how Holdo is part of the Resistance instead of being part of the First Order, which was what early rumours suggested. But it looks like she isn’t getting along with some members of the Resistance.
As Indie Wire points out, the presence of Holdo means there is a bit of a fracture in the Resistance following the events of The Force Awakens. And it seems Holdo has been sent to help manage the Resistance but she “doesn’t have Leia’s everyman (or everywoman) touch with the troops” so the fights within the group are happening.
How does this fit in with General Leia Organa’s role in the Resistance? Carrie Fisher’s iconic character is expected to play a major arc in this film but we can’t say if this means she’s trying to take back control from Holdo or going rogue with Dameron. In a new official franchise novel called Leia, Princess of Alderaan, Holdo apparently is General Leia Organa’s protégé of sorts. She learned everything from the General so we can’t say they’re going to be enemies here.
According to the novel’s author Claudia Gray (via Vanity Fair): “[Holdo] is somebody who’s a bit off-kilter, who sees the world through a prism most others don’t understand. At first Leia thinks she’s pleasant but weird, but as time goes on, it becomes apparent that there’s much more to Holdo than you might guess when you first met her. We don’t really have a lot of true oddballs in ‘Star Wars,’ so it was fun to introduce one.”
Now whether she’s a spy from the First Order is something we can’t say right now. Dern recently told TIME about her role saying “The new people will either be leading or misleading the heroes.”