Expanded Q&A: Anthony Daniels talks “Star Wars: In Concert”
Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO in all six “Star Wars” movies, narrates “Star Wars: In Concert.” (Photo courtesy Lucasfilm LTD)
“Star Wars: In Concert” is invading Oklahoma City’s Ford Center at 7:30 tonight. And Anthony Daniels, who played prissy protocol droid C-3PO in all six “Star Wars” films, is the person who will guide concert-goers through the multimedia spectacle.
The British actor, 63, is currently touring the United States with “Star Wars: In Concert” and serving as narrator of the music-and-movie extravaganza. I spoke with him via phone from his London home before the tour started, and he exuded gentlemanly manners and wry British wit.
He also spoke about his “Star Wars” legacy, his near-death experience in Morocco and what people can expect from tonight’s show. I ran a feature Tuesday on the show based on this interview, but thought people might be interested in reading an expanded version of our conversation.
For more information on the she, go to www.okfordcenter.com. And look for my review of the show late tonight.
Q: I hope you get to see the sights a bit while on the tour?
A: I had thought how wonderful to do this extraordinary tour of America. I’ve been to so many places, but you know, I’ve not been to Oklahoma, for instance. But of course, I then get the itinerary; it’s like one night. So we’ll arrive, I’ll lie down, I’ll go to the gym, I’ll go to the arena, do a soundcheck, get dressed up, do the show, go and lie down, get up and go to an airport. It’s not a good way to see America. But at least if I see places I like, I can come back.
Q: It sounds like it will be a grueling tour?
A: I will be honest with you and say I’m aware of that and wondering what it’s going to be like because I’ve never had an experience like this before, and you know, at my age, it’s kind of a bit late to start. (laughs) But you know, the team around me are so supportive, and they have done it before, and they know how to make it work. So, I’m frankly relying on them. And I’m gonna try to keep a diary to explain to myself what’s going on.
Q: You’ll at least know what day of the week it is, if nothing else.
A: You know, it will cease to matter. That’s the odd thing. It’s like when I’m traveling, I sleep when I can. It doesn’t matter if it’s 12 o’clock, I’ll lie on the floor somewhere in an office and pass out for 10 minutes and feel better. Because I’m not gonna get, with jet lag, an all-night’s sleep. So, in a way it doesn’t matter what day of the week, it matters that I’m in Oklahoma and remember that I’m in Oklahoma, not in Pasadena, where I was the night before. Do you see?
Q: Yes. Are you narrating as Anthony Daniels or as C-3PO?
A: I’m going to be in an interesting black suit. Oh, yes. Because 3PO’s gold and shiny and wonderful and nice, and I have my dark side. So, we’re honoring my dark side by putting me in black.
No, this is me. This is Anthony Daniels, the only person to be in all six ‘Star Wars’ films, the only person to be inside C-3PO. And now you get to see this weird person: Who is this man? Who is this man? (drops his voice to a near-whisper) So it is me.
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.’ (slipping into higher, panicked voice of his droid character)
(He was) terrified, 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. I think you will occasionally remember what I played in this movie.
Q: Are you excited that people will finally get to see you in conjunction with “Star Wars” after you’ve spent so much time in a gold suit?
A: 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 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. 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. (laughs) Of course, they’ll all be shouting ‘Put the face back on, get in the suit, we hate you.’
The suit, of course, is locked in a glass case in an exhibition outside the arena, where people are very, very welcome to come and look at my costume, my real costume — actually, I had six originally and this is one of them — to look at it, to marvel, ‘Why would you dress up like that.’ Except there are people who have made their own copies for fun. Whoa.
But there’s other things: original music, sheets of music by John Williams. Get there early, if you’re coming to concert, please, there’s stuff to do before you get into the room.
And when you get in the room, it’s a strange, rather wonderful environment. …
Q: You said you’re the only actor to be in all six of the films; was Kenny Baker not in all six?
A: Kenny Baker wasn’t in the last one and I’m not sure he was in the one before. … Sadly, the world of digital has taken over, so George gave him a credit for the last one, but actually it was either digital or Don Bies, the physical operator, with a remote control. But George loves doing things digitally, so if I tell that in my last scene ever with R2D2 I was on a blue carpet against a blue wall and George said, ‘Well, we’ll put R2 in later; he’s on your right.’ So, I know how big it is, the object, but I went and got the vacuum cleaner, the little domed vacuum cleaner they’d been cleaning the carpet with, so the rehearsal sort of dragged out along (with me) talking to it just to amuse everybody.
So, no, I am the only person to be in all six, to actually work on all six movies, and it’s a strange sort of accolade … a strange fact because I didn’t want to be in the first one. (laughs) Well, nobody knew there were six then; it was one movie and that was it.
Q: When did you realize that this role you’d taken rather reluctantly was going to be such a huge phenomenon?
A: Oh, I think when it opened in America and I think it made the cover of like Time magazine or Newsweek. And it just swept American and then it swept the world. And then of course we did episode, well whatever it was, ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and then the third one. And then of course there was this huge sort of interval when everybody retrenched, and I thought ‘Well, that’s it and that’s fine.’ Then of course came the special editions and the arguments about that, oh, boy.
And I was very, very happy when George called me up and asked me to come into the studio to talk about ‘Episode I.’ And he said, you have been in this, you are created by Anakin Skywalker. And I kind of wasn’t thinking and I thought that was lovely because Alec Guinness was really nice, was very nice to me. And days later I realized, oh, no, Alec played the other person (Obi-Wan Kenobi); Anakin’s the bad guy, the Darth Vader. Darth Vader is my daddy. It was such a neat twist from George’s pen. So that tells you how clever I am with a script.
But one of the interesting things about the concert is you do not have to come having seen ‘Star Wars.’ I’m quoted — and it’s absolutely true — (as saying) I’ve never seen ‘Gone with the Wind,’ one of the most famous, basic films that everyone should see I believe. I’m told. I’ve never seen it. Now, I have seen ‘Star Wars,’ usually with a free ticket I have to say, … but if you haven’t, you come to the concert, you will understand the story, because we have pared it down to the framework, the armature that carries the whole thing along. So we’ve taken away some of the side characters; you’ll see them on the screen in the specially cut pieces of film, but we don’t talk about them. But I bet most of the audience will know more about those characters than I do because they’ve seen these films more of than me. Isn’t that weird?
Q: You’re still not a science-fiction fan, are you?
A: No, I will admit I have grown and I have in the last year watched on a plane and on TV, twice recently, ‘2001.’ Still trying to understand it, and still marveling at it. Not from my first visit, but now I’m older and maybe a bit wiser and a bit more understanding. Ah, it’s a magical film, absolutely magical.
Q: I always thought that was like an urban legend that you walked out of “2001: A Space Odyssey” but it’s in your bio so I’m guessing it’s actually true.
A: 100 percent true. It was the ODEON Theater, Oxford Road, Manchester. And I cannot repeat to you, a lady, what the manager said to me. I said, ‘May I have my money back please?’ And he said, ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s a very boring film.’ The second word (he said) was ‘off.’ Now, if you said that to a customer these days, you’d be in front of an industrial tribunal … or something. But back then you could tell people off.
Q: What can people expect from the show? And what was the response to the premiere last year in London?
A: Oh, astounding. Now you have to realize that I’d only just seen the show on a working DVD because I’m in it. … When you’re in something, you don’t really see it. I had no idea what I was standing in. 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. And that extends the stage sideways and over the top, so you look from a distance and it envelopes you. Quite magical.
Oh, and do get there on time because the opening is wonderful. Not going to tell. The opening is so exciting, and I’d never seen that kind of effect before; I don’t go out much.
We have what about a 90-piece orchestra, and here’s the clever thing, it’s live music. And I don’t think many people go to symphony concerts, and I really want people to get used to the idea of going to a live orchestra. There’s nothing frightening about it. And what a great way to lead people in, to say, here’s some symphonic music written in this century and the last century by John Williams. And here it is played live and look, on the screen you can see how that group of violin players, the strings over here, the bass there, the brass, the woodwind section, the percussion, and the choir at the back, look how they’re all coming together under the baton of this one man, (Principal Conductor) Rick Brossé, who is timing everything perfectly. He’s got all the sections working together, he’s got the choir together, and he’s synchronizing it exactly with what’s onscreen. It would look horrible, you know, like a badly dubbed movie, if he didn’t do it. So everybody is concentrating like crazy. And its like watching a live scoring session — like John Williams putting music on a movie — but there you can do a retake. On our stage, it’s either right or it’s, hmm, that was not very good. We have to get it right each night, all the time, and that’s very exciting.
And people know the music hugely, and I want them to realize that the music is live. It’s not prerecorded, it’s not multitracked. In the movie, it’s recorded, and in a movie you sort of accept it as being there. But in actual fact, it has been created very, very carefully for that scene, for that character. And it is a character in its own right. Without the music, the films — how can I say this nicely? — are a little emptier. I have seen whole sequences without music; there is definitely something there.
Q: You think this is a great opportunity for people to experience a live symphonic concert but also to appreciate how the music complements the films.
A: And to appreciate how the music is made. All these people who have trained and honed their artistic skills coming together to create something far bigger than the sound of the single violin that they’re playing. They come together in the most wonderful coalition, if you like. I like listening and that’s it. I can’t play, I can’t sing, sadly. I’ve been in a couple of musicals, probably people asked for their money back, I don’t know, I hope they were treated politely. I would love to have been musical and I’m not. But I love (that) I feel almost like a musician.
But can you imagine: There I am at the O2 Arena in London and the orchestra arrives with these huge boxes of things and instrument cases. And they unpack them and they leave them by the side and they get up onstage, and I just walk on with a bit of paper. (laughs) And I feel really inadequate actually ‘cause all I have is my face and voice, I suppose. But it kind of works; you know, we all do what we do.
But in hearing this music over and over again, I can so appreciate the intricacy of the music. It’s not just da da da da ta da dum ta da. There’s all sorts of stuff happening underneath it, just like in the movies. There’s things in the scenes that you can see differently every time you watch that movie.
Q: How did the crowd at the O2 Arena respond to it?
A: Amazingly. Because 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 at a performance of ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I shocked to my feet at the end, I couldn’t stop myself it was magnificent and tragic. And we had two standing ovations in England, in London where people don’t do that. And 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.
We are bashing at the audience, the orchestra really push out. I have position back of the orchestra when I’m not talking. I have a special Plexiglas sort of screened-off area to stop me being deafened from the sound, the noise is huge, magical. But you don’t want to be right up close to it.
Q: What was it like to wear that C-3PO costume? Because when I was a little girl I didn’t believe there was actually a person in it because it looks so mechanical.
A: As we were saying, this is what is rather lovely for me, that now you get to see a man in a kind of dinner suit. It was obviously very uncomfortable, and if you look at it in the exhibit along with other costumes, which probably were equally vile, it was uncomfortable but one of the things was it was actually quite remote in there because I was alone in my little world. You know, R2D2, my best friend, was basically a box that didn’t speak, that I just talked to and improvised a conversation with. I was locked in there; nobody could have eye contact with me, they couldn’t see me. I couldn’t sit down or eat or drink. And at the end of the day I have to say I wasn’t very happy. It was a very … remote experience. And that’s maybe the life of a machine. And I’ll be honest with you, I kind of talk to machines a lot, speak to them, the microwave. …
I had a near-death experience in the Moroccan desert, getting completely lost, knowing that I was going to make a headline, you know, ‘British tourist found dead in desert 3 miles from safely.’ And when we eventually got through with this very, very scary experience out in the desert —it was nasty and we did get through it — and we walked into the hotel eventually, and I walked straight out again and I went over to the car and patted it and I said ‘thank you’ and I walked back in. And of course, I was determined to write to Toyota and tell them the story, but I didn’t. But I did thank the car.
Q: Was this a “Star Wars”-related event?
A: Oh, no, no. Sadly, we never filmed in Morocco. No. No, I was on holiday. I made a mistake, it was like actor out of his depth in desert where the sun has not seen ‘Star Wars,’ the rocks don’t care that he could die. But I got through it.
Q: You’re continuing to work on other “Star Wars”-related projects. You’re doing the “Clone Wars” animated series, correct?
A: Oh, yes, “Clone Wars,” which is hugely popular. … It’s very beautiful, the pictures are lovely, the drawings are absolutely terrific.
Q: Isn’t there supposed to be some untitled “Star Wars” TV series in the works?
A: Oh, in the future.
But right now my concentration has to be on packing up my house because my partner Christine is coming with me to hold my hand throughout all this, so we’re packing up our homes in England and France and abandoning ourselves to America for three months.
Q: It’s going to be a long tour.
A: And I never done it, and you know, it’s going to be interesting. I can do the ‘Clone Wars’ things from a studio near me, that’s for sure, and it’s wonderful to be in something that popular again.
Of course, the North American tour is the start of a world tour. I’m not sure how I feel about that. We’ll have to see. Because, you know, if we’re doing around 50 concerts — the numbers do keep changing, it is kind of very difficult to organize — how many times can I say the same thing and mean it.
Q: It’ll be challenge; it’ll be like doing theater.
A: It is and the longest I did theater actually was about nine months, I think. And finally my brain said ‘You can’t say this again; you said it last night.’ (laughs) I’m hoping to find inspiration from the audience each night, frankly, that’s the way I see it working. … I was surprised at the audience reaction, I would say.
Q: I can imagine with the two standing ovations.
A: But also during (the concert). I will tell you that when I said — what’s the line — ‘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, huge round of applause for the name. ‘Piloted by a smuggler named Han Solo’ — huge round of applause. Took me totally by surprise.
Q: What makes this story so …
A: So loved?
Q: … and so enduring?
A: I’m not even sure George Lucas could tell you that. But you know, I’ve never asked him. I should ask him; I’ll ask him next time I see him. There’s all sort of things: He did base it on huge historical myths. He based it on the eternal drama of father and son — funny enough, it’s never mothers and daughters, have you noticed that? It’s fathers and sons. …
Q: There’s too much violence and bad language with mother-daughter drama.
A: (laughs) Oh, I didn’t realize that. Well, father and son just get mean to each other. There’s also the journey of the hero, the farm boy who goes on a quest and makes good and is a good person. There is also the bad person who is redeemed, the forgiveness thing. There’s the thing that the bad end unhappily. There’s also the basic things like that. Then, if you take iconic characters, if you’ve got weird characters — C-3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, Yoda — he created somehow these wacky things that most people go, ‘Wow, that’s kind of neat.’
Then, technically, it’s become very easy to (watch a movie). In the old days, if you watched the movie, it had to be on huge reels of celluloid in a movie theater. And when ‘Stars Wars’ came out, that’s how they saw it. But then moved into video and now onto any kind of digital thing you can think of; it makes it very easy for a father to share with his son, with his grandson, etc. You know, that’s a technical reason why it works.
But it’s given people also this strange camaraderie around the world. The film is the same in any language. The images are the same, the philosophy is the same. It has created a global network of people who now are rather like (but) bigger than football fans. But the same thing: a common currency, a common understanding. An ability to be evil: If you want to dress up as a baddie, it’s OK because we all know the parameters on which that’s based, that yes, you’re on the Dark Side of the Force, and that’s pretty good. You know, you’re allowed to be there; it feels really cool to be on the Dark Side. But of course, ultimately in the movies, the Dark Side is triumphed over by the forces of good. And not in a patronizing ‘Little House on the Prairie’ sort of way. It’s sort of in a meaningful way. You know, some people didn’t like the fact that Darth Vader gets forgiveness in the end. But you know, isn’t that what we all want? We want to be forgiven for being bad. I’m sure most people have bad thoughts at some point but we all surprise them. … The Emperor never suppressed a bad thought, never knowingly suppressed a bad thought. So he ends badly. And we quite like that because it’s justification; we’re justified in thinking he’s a bad person because he gets his comeuppance.
There are so many elements that like the concert, like a delicious meal, a delicious feast is made up of bits of this and bits of that all woven into a well-balanced joyful meal that everybody celebrates. The movies are like that, and “Star Wars: In Concert” is like that. It’s a mixture of an enormous space; the O2 Arena is the biggest space I think I’ve ever worked in. It felt like the palm of a hand, a giant hand that held everybody. … So, that’s the space you’re in. There’s the orchestra, there’s the staging, there’s the conductor, the giant screen, the extraordinary lighting effects, the canopies, the lasers, me, the choir and the audience. And it all makes a thing that is bigger than anything. It makes something weird, like putting eggs and flour and butter and suddenly it becomes a cake because you heat it up. Some magic happens. If being in your city is anything like being in London, we will all share with each other. It’s a mutual experience. And I’m seeing this from experience, I’ve done it twice with an audience and even I enjoyed myself.
Q: Sounds like it’s going to be a great show.
A: … You don’t have to be a ‘Star Wars’ fan. I think the producer is saying something like we’re not sure if we’re inviting symphony lovers to a film or film lovers to a symphony. And actually he’s quite right. I don’t know, it’s a wonderful mixture. … But don’t be disappointed that I’m not in the gold suit.
-BAM
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