Anthony Daniels talks about narrating “Star Wars: In Concert,” playing C-3PO
A version of this story appears on the cover of Tuesday’s Life section of The Oklahoman.
“Vast” show celebrates “Star Wars”
Much like his onscreen alter ego in “Return of the Jedi,” Anthony Daniels is tasked with telling the epic tale from “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” in the music-and-movie extravaganza “Star Wars: In Concert.”
As narrator of the multimedia event, Daniels, 63, appears as himself in a natty black suit, rather than donning the awkward golden costume he assumed to play prissy translation droid C-3PO in the six “Star Wars” films.
“As narrator, obviously, I share certain of 3PO’s qualities because he’s a very talkative person who always wants to organize things for the best possible good of everybody. His job is to make everybody comfortable: ‘Do you have a drink? Will you have a canapé?’ Sadly, in George Lucas’ world this hardly ever happened, did it? It was always like ‘Oh my! Oh, I’m terrified! Oh, we must leave,’ Daniels said, slipping into the higher, panicked voice of the jittery robot.
“(He was) surrounded by explosions and drama. So, this time, Anthony Daniels gets to have his go, but that is not to say that the spirit of 3PO won’t occasionally come onto the stage in a sort of psychological, intellectual way.”
The spirit, music and memorable moments of the beloved space saga are incorporated into “Star Wars: In Concert,” which embarked this month on a worldwide arena tour. The show invades Tulsa’s BOK Center tonight before taking over the Ford Center Wednesday.
“It’s enormous, it’s vast. The stage is huge and then it is absolutely extended by these drapes which are woven with light-emitting diodes, which allow you to push — I’m being very technical here — push digital footage through. So you’re seeing a film but not on a screen but through separate points of light. Up close it looks like rubbish, from a distance, it’s magical, like a dream sequence,” Daniels gushed in a phone interview from his London home before the tour launched.
The production features a full symphony orchestra and choir performing John Williams’ acclaimed scores from all six movies. The live music is synchronized with specially edited footage from the films, displayed on a three-story-tall, high-definition LED “super-screen.” Lasers and light effects boost the show’s sci-fi sensibilities.
For Daniels, the response from the crowd has proven almost as amazing as the spectacle. “Star Wars: In Concert” made its world premiere in April with two performances at London’s O2 Arena.
“When I said … ‘No escape more daring than that of a rather battered but much-loved spacecraft the Millennium Falcon’ — huge round of applause for the Millennium Falcon. People love it. … ‘Piloted by a smuggler named Han Solo’ — huge round of applause. Took me totally by surprise,” said Daniels, who exuded genteel manners and wry humor in the interview.
The Brit also was surprised when the concert earned two standing ovations from the London audiences.
“In England we don’t stand up, we don’t give standing ovations. Only if it’s something incredibly special. I’ve done it once in my life. … I was amazed. Normally, we sit there politely, applauding loudly and strongly, but two standing ovations is pretty good. I liked it. It is indescribable the feeling of power that comes from the audience to the stage,” said Daniels, who still plays C-3PO in the animated TV series “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
Although he played neither the farm boy hero nor its redeemed villain, Daniels seems the perfect “Star Wars” player to narrate the concert. He is the only actor to actually work on all six “Star Wars” movies. (Fellow droid R2D2 also appears in every film, but Daniels said the robot was digitally created in the final prequel film. Still, R2D2 actor Kenny Baker received a credit for “Revenge of the Sith.”)
“It’s a strange sort of accolade … because I didn’t want to be in the first one,” Daniels said with a laugh.
He was working in theater when he got a call from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas about appearing in the writer-director’s low-budget space Western. Lucas thought Daniels’ mime skills would be useful in conveying C-3PO’s unique personality through the tricky golden costume. The actor initially refused the meeting because he wasn’t a sci-fi fan, having once demanded his money back partway through a showing of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Onset, the costume proved uncomfortable and isolating: Daniels and his co-stars couldn’t make eye contact through it, and he couldn’t sit, eat or drink. Once “Star Wars” was released, the studio kept his identity secret.
“It has been an odd journey all these years because originally, of course, they sort of pretended that 3PO was a robot, that there wasn’t a human inside who pretended to be a robot. And I will admit that that was quite difficult because I kind of worked quite hard and it wasn’t very nice. And people liked 3PO and it would have been nice if they’d known that I played 3PO,” he said.
“That was 30-something years ago, and now you know, with the passage of time, the growth of understanding, I’m very happy now to be C-3PO, to be the narrator, to have people look in wonder at the face,” he added with a laugh.
Going on
“Star Wars: In Concert”
Oklahoma City
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Where: Ford Center, 100 W Reno.
Tickets and information: (800) 745-3000 or www.okfordcenter.com.
Tulsa
When: 7:30 tonight.
Where: BOK Center, 200 S Denver.
Tickets and information: (866) 726-5287 or go to www.bokcenter.com.
-BAM
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This is great that you posted it. Thank you for it. And for including the entire thing and not bits of it.