After appearing in every Star Wars movie since A New Hope, Anthony Daniels speaks out about the CGI version of C-3PO… and it seems he wasn’t fussed.
It’s no secret that the Star Wars prequels relied rather heavily on CGI effects to make the magic happen… and the films are often criticised for their over-dependence on CGI jiggery pokery to make them work. But while Anthony Daniels was happy to climb back into his gold C-3PO suit, it seems he wasn’t too fussed on the CGI parts.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 68-year-old Star Wars actor revealed his pet peeves about being a part of the galaxy far, far away.
“[During the prequels], the only time [C-3PO has] been CG was when it was very dangerous [to act in the scene] — and it wasn’t very good. In fact, I’m going to say it was awful.”
Of course, the most memorable CGI Threepio scene comes in Attack of the Clones when the usually uptight protocol droid inadvertently loses his head… only to be replaced by that of a standard battle droid.
But while it’s obvious that Daniels is keen to keep CGI away from C-3PO – after all, it’s been his career for over 30 years – it seems he’s just not fussed on the way it looks.
“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.’” he said. “With me [in the suit], he’s always going to move the same way and have the same reactions, timing, and so on.”
Although Daniels is confirmed to reprise his role alongside Kenny Baker’s R2-D2 in Star Wars VII it looks as though his physical presence wasn’t always on the cards… and revealed that he only agreed to come back if he could don the suit once more.
“When 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.”
Thankfully, Abrams agreed… and even put his team to work in order to create a new, more-comfortable C-3PO 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.”
Of course, despite his protests against voice-acting in Star Wars VII it seems the next time we’ll see Daniels on screen is – you guessed it – providing the voice of C-3PO for the all-new TV series, Star Wars: Rebels.
“Rebels is an old fashion link to the old fashion film, which we all loved,” he said. “And you will love Episode VII — I have electrodes strapped to my head to zap me if I say anything more about it.”
Star Wars: Episode VII heads to cinemas on 18 December 2015.
What do you think of Anthony Daniels’ comments? Do you think a practical C-3PO is always better? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
