By: Dominic Jones
The actor who portrayed C-3PO in all six Star Wars films, as well as pretty much every Star Wars spin off material including The Clone Wars and Star Tours, Anthony Daniels spoke with Entertainment Weekly about his career as and what's next for the golden protocol droid. Daniels is set to reprise his role as Threepio in Star Wars Episode VII and lend his voice to the droid on Star Wars Rebels, the upcoming animated series from Lucasfilm Animation.
When asked about the potential of a CGI Threepio in the future, Daniels described his first talk with Episode VII director JJ Abrams,
"I will tell you that when [director] J.J. Abrams rang me to ask about filming Episode VII,
one of the first things he said after he told me how wonderful I was —
and that didn’t take long — but he then said, “Would you be interested
in being in the film just doing the voice?” I said, “No,” and he said,
“Right!” He knew I’d say that. There’s no way I would just do the voice.
I also said that it can’t be the same suit. I will tell you that the
team then got together and built a new suit. They made an entirely new
look-a-like with changes that you will never notice [on screen] that
made my life a lot easier. I can get it on and off very quickly. [During
the prequels], the only time [Threepio has] been CG was when it was
very dangerous [to act in the scene in a suit] — and it wasn’t very
good. In fact, I’m going to say it was awful. One of the difficulties is
with a character that you know and love so well is that, as a member of
the audience, you go, “Oh no, that’s not right. No, he doesn’t move
like that.” With me [in the suit], he’s always going to move
the same way and have the same reactions, timing, and so on. With CG,
you’re working with some brilliant person on the keyboard who is trying
to pretend to be me. The only time that has worked without doubt is
Disney’s Star Tours: The Adventures Continue [theme park ride].
There’s an element in the pre-show which is digital and I cannot tell
it’s not me. It’s brilliantly done by Disney. In a cartoon series like Rebels,
you accept it because it’s not trying to pretend to be reality. It’s an
extension, it’s an exaggeration. On that basis, it’s utterly acceptable
— providing the characterization is correct."
Daniels also discussed bringing Treepio to life in animated form for Star Wars Rebels,
"It’s unique that it goes very specifically to a given period of time,
which is just before the film that I happened to like the best — which
is A New Hope, the first one. There are now three generations [of fans], which I know because of my work with Star Wars: In Concert
where I could see in the audience terrifyingly young children and I
thought, “They’re going to be a menace,” and they sat there open-mouthed
at the story that I was telling to them onstage with the orchestra. Now
you can [ease] people into A New Hope. And you’ve seen I, II
and III, there’s gaps there. What happened to these characters? We love
them. We want to see what they did when they were not in the big films.
Because George and everybody who’s followed on has created such a
reality in the galaxy far, far away that we want to see more about it."
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