Mahoney made her feature film directorial debut in 2011 with Yelling to the Sky, a drama about a troubled teenage girl (played by Zoe Kravitz) for which she also wrote the script. She has extensive television directing experience, having helmed episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Power, Gypsy, Seven Seconds, and DuVernay’s drama series Queen Sugar. She also recently directed Red Line, a pilot for CBS that was co-produced by DuVernay.

Her appointment is significant given Star Wars’ long history of prioritising the voices and viewpoints of white men, both behind and in front of the camera. Every single Star Wars film has been directed and written by white men, and the first film in the series – 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope – only featured dialogue spoken by white characters, the vast majority of whom were men.

It wasn’t until The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 that a non-white character (Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams) had any speaking time in a Star Wars film. That’s a stark contrast to 2015’s The Force Awakens, in which actors of colour – including Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Lupita Nyong’o – spoke roughly 40% of all lines.

Kelly-Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico in The Last Jedi, said in 2017 that she hoped Star Wars’ increasing commitment to diversity would influence the film industry more generally.

“I’m excited to be part of the change, it feels like a responsibility but it’s awesome as I get to be in this movie and be this character, but it’s also horrifying because it’s so rare,” she said. “I don’t take representation lightly, and I am excited to be part of the change.”

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Star Wars just got its first black female director