Proxima

"Well, what happened?"

- Lady Proxima, to Han

Lady Proxima was a Grindalid female crime boss who operated out of a lair on Corellia during the Imperial Era. She was the leader of the White Worms, a group that took in young Corellians, their "children", and gave them food and shelter in exchange for their participation in criminal activities on Lady Proxima's behalf. Han Solo and Qi'ra were two of those children.

Behind the scenes
"The initial brief for ‘The Lair of the White Worms’ suggested that Lady Proxima was this matriarch of a low-level street gang, intolerant of daylight, might be literally worm-like, and potentially have tentacles underneath the water. We played with ideas that the tentacles might interconnect with her attendants, that maybe they were all a symbiotic organism; we looked at whether she was truly worm-like or more like a snake or serpent. Has she got scales or arms? She also had to be dominant over Han. She needed to come up and over and really bear down over him, towering up out of the water."

- Jake Lunt Davies on Proxima's design

Lady Proxima is voiced by Linda Hunt in the 2018 Star Wars Anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story. Screenwriter Jon Kasdan was the one who suggested casting Linda Hunt as Lady Proxima, having admired Hunt's haunting opening narration of Shelley Duvall's 1989 horror anthology TV show Nightmare Classics. Hunt had also worked previously with Kasdan in his 1985 Western film Silverado. During production of Solo, the character's name was Mother Proxima, but was changed to Lady Proxima late in production.

Proxima's design evolved through the development of Solo. In an interview with StarWars.com, creature concept designer Jake Lunt Davies revealed that the initial brief for the Den of the White Worms suggested Proxima's appearance, including the possibility of actually having tentacles underwater which might interconnect with her attendants. Though the creature effects concept team questioned whether Proxima was more like a worm or a serpent or whether she had scales or arms, they always designed her in a way she would be dominant over Han. Proxima's final design was produced by Ivan Manzella, but Davies designed her costume, comparing Proxima to Fagin, one of the antagonists in Charles Dickens' classic novel Oliver Twist, who also recruited children to give them food and shelter in exchange of performing criminal activities like pickpocketing.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Battlefront II
 * Most Wanted
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: Meet the Crew
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: Expanded Edition
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: Expanded Edition audiobook
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: A Junior Novel
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story Read-Along Storybook and CD
 * Solo Adaptation 1
 * Solo Adaptation 3
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 1
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 2
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 3
 * 17|Flight of the Falcon, Part 4: Lady and the Tramp}}