Interview: Star Wars Outlaws Actor Humberly González Talks Stepping Into Kay Vess’ Shoes

Humberly González portrays Kay Vess, the scoundrel underdog of Star Wars Outlaws who unwittingly embarks on an epic hero’s journey as she garners favor from the galaxy’s competing underworld factions. Scrappy, confident, and charming, Kay Vess is an iconic Star Wars scoundrel in the making thanks to González’ dedication to delivering an authentic and believable performance.

Game Rant sat down with Humberly González to discuss her role as Kay Vess, and she revealed plenty of insights regarding her approach to preparing for the role and how she relates to Kay Vess on a personal level. González also spoke about some of her own favorite Star Wars characters, how performing in Star Wars Outlaws compares to her prior works, and much more. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: How would you describe Kay Vess as a person? Were there certain things about her that you wanted to “get right” with your performance?

González: I feel like Kay is impatient at times. She wants to get things in a certain timeline, which is why she doesn’t really sweat the little things. She’s not a quitter. She’s very resilient, and even though she’s a rookie, she’s fearless, so even if she’s nervous, she won’t show you that. Maybe Nix will be a reflection of that.

She does it even with fear because, at the end of the day, her dream is to be free. To do that, she has to be rich. Her scoundrel code is “trust nobody,” so she feels like she has a system to get what she wants, at least. That’s what’s worked so far in Canto Bight. It’s a different story when she leaves her tiny limitations of a hometown.

Q: How much of your own personality did you get to put into the character? Did you feel like you could relate to her?

González: Absolutely! Even before I knew that it was Star Wars or that it was Kay Vess, I remember from the initial audition, that I noticed she had a lot of confidence, even if it’s false confidence. She relies a lot on her charms and her wit; she can be pretty smooth with her words and buttering people up, making them feel good so that she can take advantage of them. She’s an opportunist.

I feel like that swagger and kind of confidence came naturally to me. I’ve played a few characters that have those qualities. I think Kay Vess is obviously the one who uses it more and relies on it, but you know, once we started working, I remember Navid, our narrative director, being like, “You know, you’re sitting in that chair like Kay Vess.” She just has this “no worries” kind of facade and always has a cool pose and the way that she walks, the swagger, kind of like weighted feet. She’s just confident in herself. So I walk around with a lot of that “fake it till you make it” attitude.

Q: Do you have any personal favorite Star Wars characters who might have inspired you in the role?

González:Han Solo was an inspiration for me and Kay Vess, knowing that he is the the coolest scoundrel out there. Kay Vess only aspires to be like him, but she’s a bit more flawed. She’s more vulnerable than that. It’s like a nod to him, but at the same time, Kay Vess is such a new type of scoundrel that, because she’s a rookie, she doesn’t have the experience and the skill set that Han Solo comes along with.

But yeah, I feel like in the original trilogy, there are those iconic characters like Princess Leia and even all the droids, and the fact that Kay Vess gets to hang out with Jabba the Hutt for a little bit, I just wanted Kay Vess to maybe become one of those iconic characters because we were living in that timeline. I hope people relate to her and like her as much as they do the other ones.

Q: How did you prepare for the role of Kay Vess? Were there certain films you watched or techniques you employed?

González: As soon as I knew that it was Star Wars and that it took place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I obviously watched those films instantly. Anytime I saw anything Star Wars, I got really excited and I started looking at everything with more attention and active listening and paying attention to details.

There was this exciting energy inside me that, every time I heard the theme song or anything talking about the franchise, I would just perk up and think, “How would Kay react to this? How would she act if she met x, y, or z? What differentiates her from the other ones?”

Because it’s a new hero’s journey and a new scoundrel story, there wasn’t a lot to draw from, especially because she’s from Canto Bight. There’s not a massive amount of information on that, but I definitely wanted to do enough research so that I knew what the cantina vibe was like, the underbelly of all the crime syndicates, what their attitudes were when it comes to being a part of that timeline and specific pocket of the galaxy.

Honestly, a lot of the work came from just asking the writers and the directors and everyone who’s working on the storyboards and the story itself for information, because I wanted to know where the birth of Kay came from, the motivation, why we wanted to focus on this scoundrel story, and that was really interesting to me. It informed a lot of my choices and what I was bringing to the table.

It’s the difference between having a written character and then breathing life into her. I knew they cast me for a reason, so a lot of the times they said, “Trust your instincts. We love what you’re doing” and made sure I gave her the heart that we saw in those initial moments which ultimately landed me the role.

Q: Were you afforded any freedom with the character to say “I think Kay Vess would say something like this instead” or things like that?

González: Absolutely. Something I’ve heard from Nikki Foy, the writer, and Navid too, and everyone that I worked closely with when they were writing Kay, is that I think they wrote her maybe a bit more snarky. There was a bit more of this jokester side to her, maybe a bit more harsh and cynical. When I came into the project, I wanted to showcase more breaks in the armor, the vulnerability, the heart, the flaws, and not just having them, but how she recovered from them, the way that she found composure in the moments where she messed up and had to kind of recoil.

I think naturally I have a quick pace on the banter when getting to know her. When I found that banter and that jokester side to her, but that was more vulnerable, I always stayed in character even when we weren’t filming. Even between the scenes with me and ND-5, for example, we always joked back and forth, and they were always listening, probably for a reason, because they would be like, “Ooh, we like that. Let’s keep that.” Because I’ve been in her shoes and walked her quite literally, there’s a sense of knowing that goes beyond just writing her but truly walking in her shoes.

It was great when there were moments that I knew when Kay Vess would say something very differently, and sometimes it was as simple as a line was written and I couldn’t say it, or I kept forgetting it, or the words weren’t matching and I was like, “How would I say this?” I would just say it in my own words, and they would go, “Yeah, we like that better. That makes so much more sense.” It’s almost like she became alive in me as well, and I understood the way that she wanted to communicate.

Q: Were there moments or emotions of hers that you particularly enjoyed expressing?

González: I think the moments where she really thinks that she can take on the worst and the baddest of the galaxy, the moments where she’s like, “No, I’m not going to do that. I know how to take care of myself,” or, “You know what? I got this,” and then she really does it.

It’s this endearing and humbling moment for her, like her thinking she can maneuver an entire Trailblazer, a ship that she has never set foot in, and she is once again humbled by not knowing how to do this, but she’s like, “Okay, okay. Leave me alone, I’m new at this.” She kind of becomes a bit defensive, but still never apologizes. She doesn’t really apologize or give excuses. She just goes, “I’m doing my best, okay? Just watch. Just give me a moment.”

Especially with her and ND-5, she doesn’t want to be babysat by him, so our banter back and forth is always really fun for me and it’s probably my favorite part. When we’re in the ship and we’re maybe in a dog fight or something, and he’s like, “You do know that we’re being attacked right now?” and I’m like, “Give me a break, man, I’m seeing what’s in front of me!” Those moments we always laugh right afterward because it’s like, okay, she just wants to be good at everything.

How Acting In Star Wars Outlaws Stands Out From Other Projects

Q: Did working on Star Wars Outlaws differ in any interesting ways from past game projects you’ve been a part of?

González: You know what’s interesting? My very first video game was Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and that was a video game that was developed here at Ubisoft Toronto from the ground up. I was very proud of that because I always wanted to do video games and it was my first introduction to it.

In my very first in-person callback, they built a wooden spaceship for me because it so happens that my character was the fastest race car driver on Earth, but then she had an accident and couldn’t race, but she got recruited to this space mission where she got a bionic arm and leg and she was able to now race in space.

I definitely had a full circle moment of my very first baby and introduction to this world, to now leading Star Wars, and I now get to drive a bigger wooden spaceship! I always think of that character and how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown. The fact that I, as the motion capture performer, do have experience in driving a wooden spaceship was very cool. It was like deja vu.

Q: What was the most challenging part of playing someone like Kay Vess?

González: I’ll speak from the acting perspective and then the actual character. As an actor, this was my very first time leading a project where I was there every day for pretty much every scene. Managing my stamina, making sure that I knew where the story was–because we shoot out of chronological order–making sure that I kept in mind where in her hero’s journey she was at all times so that I wasn’t giving away too much or too confident when she was still in her rookie stages or vice versa.

Making sure that I wasn’t making her grown enough or skilled enough at times when she had already learned something. I really relied on the team’s expertise and made sure that I was asking questions and I didn’t get too cocky, so they keep me humble [laughs].

When it comes to Kay, she runs around a lot, she screams a lot. It was not a challenge, but just making sure that I kept her true to the journey that she’s on. I didn’t want to play her to one note, I wanted to make sure that when she was struck by something, or fearful or vulnerable, that I really brought that without also victimizing her too much. I think that was a really important balance for me because as an actor, it’s really easy to want to lean into all of those emotions and go “happy, sad, angry, not angry.” I wanted it to be more layered and complex, so those details were really important to me.

The gift of shooting and then getting to see playback immediately after was that I could watch myself do it and go, “That was a bit too much, I’m lingering at that too much. Kay Vess wouldn’t.” I want to as an actor, but Kay Vess wouldn’t. I had to always make sure that I was telling the story right, the story of Kay Vess, not just enjoying myself too much as an actor. I learned a lot through this process.

Q: You’ve done plenty of acting outside of games, too. How would you compare those experiences? Do you have a preference for one or the other now?

González: Now now, we can’t play favorites [laughs].

Honestly, I will be fully transparent that video games and motion capture was something that I knew I wanted to do before even considering film and TV. When I was training in theater school, I got exposed to motion capture in Montreal and I got to wear the suits and we got to do mock scenes. I had no idea that real actors were in video games; I thought it was all animated. It was really amazing for me to see that, and it opened this whole side of the industry that I didn’t even know existed.

I did get to work on video games quite a bit and I have to say that I think it really made me a better screen actor because, in motion capture, you have to have so much awareness of your body. You’re being recorded from head to toe, down to your fingertips, so everything means something. To me, that means that you have to have so much control over your craft, your instrument–which is what my mentors and teachers would call, essentially, your body–and I think they’re hand-in-hand tools for one another.

Film and TV have deepened the inner work and the inner life of my characters in mocap, and mocap has taught me to relax and not gloss over moments and to make sure that my body language is always matching my intentions because that’s what mocap does. I think you can turn off the volume in any scene and you still will get the sense of what’s happening. They’re best friends. They’re besties.

Q: Do you have any favorite moments that come to mind from your time working on Outlaws?

González: Honestly, I really enjoyed wearing my suit, and I remember I always came in and I felt like a freaking superhero. Doing ROM was always one of my favorite things: range of motion. The technicality of the world always excites me. I’ve done quite a few games with Ubisoft, and that never gets old.

I have to say, some of my favorite parts are when they build these worlds out of wood and you have Jabba the Hutt and his throne and they’re making the walls and the palace, and you have to imagine what it’ll all look like. We built a Trailblazer out of wooden pieces and metal, and people were maneuvering it to actually make me move and I got to be kind of in like a Star Wars Galaxy-like ride. They also built the Trailblazer and moved it around so that I could feel the feeling of going into hyperspace.

Those moments made me feel like a kid and like we were playing with toys. Living in that make-believe world and creating it all in your mind’s eye is super fun.

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