Boba Fett is one of the most iconic characters in the Star Wars universe.
He might be just one man, but he's been played by over a dozen actors
since the character was first created. Think you can you name them all?
Before the release of The Empire Strikes Back or even the infamous Holiday Special, Boba Fett made
his debut at an annual fall parade in San Anselmo, California, on Sunday, September 24th, 1978.
San Anselmo was home to 52 Park Way, often known as George Lucas' "secret lair" — which
is why it was chosen as the site of the beloved bounty hunter's premiere. Assistant film editor
Duwayne Dunham wore the famous armor in the parade simply because he was the right size.
"Sure, have him turn around and get a shot at the jetpack. Can you do it, Duwayne?"
According to Dunham, the parade took place on an extremely hot day in San Anselmo, which he
recalled "could have been 100 degrees." Since no one knew who his character was at the time,
few fans approached him, though Dunham did, in fact, sign autographs. For this,
he even had to ask a nearby producer, Gary Kurtz, if "Fett" had one T in it, or two.
The first onscreen appearance of Boba Fett came two months after the San Anselmo parade,
during the now-notorious Star Wars Holiday Special. The bounty hunter
shows up in an animated sequence, in which he is voiced by Don Francks.
"I take it you have no love of the Empire."
After the Millennium Falcon crashes on a water planet, Luke and the droids try to rescue their
friends. As soon as they land, however, they're threatened by a large beast that Fett fights off,
thus gaining the heroes' trust. In truth, he's been sent by the Empire
to infiltrate the rebels in the hopes of finding the location of their base.
Francks was a Canadian actor who worked regularly up until his passing in 2016,
at the age of 84. His most visible roles include Walter on the Canadian TV series
La Femme Nikita and Chief Jake Newby in the 1981 slasher classic My Bloody Valentine.
Most fans didn't get to meet Boba Fett until he went on the hunt for Han Solo in The
Empire Strikes Back. For most of Boba Fett's scenes in that movie and Return of the Jedi,
the man in the suit is Jeremy Bulloch. The English actor had
appeared in multiple British TV series and films before becoming part of Star Wars,
but his silent role as Boba Fett remains by far his most well-remembered.
Speaking to io9 in 2011, Bulloch said he never expected Boba Fett's character to become so
popular. When asked what he thought Boba got up to after plunging into the sarlacc pit,
Bulloch suggested that Boba might have tracked down and killed Mace Windu,
who killed Boba's father in Attack of the Clones before appearing to die one movie later.
Bulloch continued to act on-and-off in the decades after Empire,
and even made a cameo appearance in Revenge of the Sith. In December 2020,
he died at the age of 75 from complications of Parkinson's disease.
Jeremy Bulloch's face only appears once during The Empire Strikes Back — and it
isn't while he's playing Boba. When Luke Skywalker infiltrates Bespin's Cloud City,
Leia spots him and warns that he's falling into a trap. At the same time, an Imperial officer
is trying to pull her away. That officer is Lieutenant Sheckil, played by Bulloch. The
production's shooting schedules conflicted at the time, however, and in order to shoot that scene,
Bulloch couldn't play Boba Fett in another — one in which the bounty hunter walks down
a hallway with Vader, Lando, and Lobot. So John Morton got to be Boba Fett for that one scene.
That isn't Morton's only role in Empire, either. He also played rebel pilot Dak Ralter,
Luke Skywalker's gunner during the Battle of Hoth. Having previously worked as a stuntman,
Morton didn't do much more acting during his career, although he did score smaller roles
in two other sci-fi classics released the same year as Empire — Flash Gordon and Superman II.
While Jeremy Bulloch and John Morton played the
physical role of Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy,
the voice fans initially heard coming out of Fett's helmet was that of Jason Wingreen.
"What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me."
This isn't the case for many modern Star Wars fans, however,
as the 2004 DVD releases swapped Wingreen's voice with Temuera Morrison's.
"What if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me."
Wingreen claimed that, for him, portraying Boba Fett took "no more than 10 minutes" of work.
There's an argument to be made that Wingreen wasn't treated very fairly
by the Star Wars franchise after lending his voice to the famous bounty hunter. His
name wasn't included in the credits of Empire Strikes Back,
and his involvement wasn't even public knowledge until around the year 2000. Most shockingly,
he never received any residual compensation for his work, even though his voice was used
for Boba Fett action figures. Wingreen died on Christmas Day, 2015. He was 95 years old.
Back in 1981, George Lucas sold the radio rights for the original Star Wars trilogy to NPR
for the whopping sum of $1; the filmmaker had been listening to NPR since his college days, and was
inclined to feel generous towards them. All three movies were eventually adapted into radio dramas,
split into half-hour-long installments. Certain actors from the movies reprised their roles,
but most of the other characters had to be recast — including Boba Fett.
In the 1983 Empire Strikes Back radio play,
Boba Fett was played by Alan Rosenberg, an actor who has worked steadily since the late 1970s,
mostly in television. Unfortunately, by the time a Return of the Jedi adaptation could be made,
federal funding cuts and a number of other factors had put the radio play on hold. It wasn't until
1996 that the six-part drama was recorded, with Ed Begley Jr. taking over the role of Boba Fett.
Around the same time, in 1994, the popular Dark Empire comic book series was adapted into two
audio dramas. For the role of Boba Fett, character actor Joseph Hacker was chosen.
Hacker has appeared on dozens of TV shows over the years, from Quantum Leap to 24.
The final actor to play Fett in an audio drama was the otherwise-unknown Tim Glovatsky, who played
the bounty hunter in Dark Forces: Rebel Agent, an adaptation of the novel of the same name.
When the Special Edition of A New Hope hit theaters in 1997,
it included an uncompleted scene from the original production, in which Jabba the
Hutt and Han Solo talk before the Falcon leaves Tatooine. Along with a group of armed henchmen,
Jabba is accompanied by the silent but intimidating figure of Boba Fett.
The bounty hunter was worked into the story digitally, courtesy of Industrial
Light and Magic animator Mark Austin, who donned the iconic armor for the scene.
While his appearance is brief in A New Hope, Austin obviously feels attached to the role.
He even played the bounty hunter for a second time on the Boba Fett Fan Club's web series No
Disintegrations. These episodes are meant to be transmissions from Boba Fett's ship,
most of which take place within specific chapters of the saga.
When it came time to produce the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi,
George Lucas apparently wanted more Boba Fett — even though he never did manage to
work in an escape from the sarlacc pit. What fans do get, however, is more time with the
armored bounty hunter during the extended song and dance number in Jabba the Hutt's palace.
For most of these new Boba Fett shots, special effects artist
Don Bies stepped into the character's iconic armor. Nelson Hall, another VFX artist,
provided the rest of the footage for Fett. In a 2016 interview with StarWars.com,
Bies revealed he also played a musician in Jabba's band, as well as a whole bunch of
stormtroopers and Imperial officers in A New Hope. Apparently, he and Nelson Hall stuck themselves in
so many scenes that their effects supervisor actually had to ask them to tone it down.
If you're a fan of animated Star Wars properties, you've likely heard Tom Kane's voice.
He's the narrator of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well as the voice of Yoda in that
series and a number of other productions. As far as Boba Fett is concerned, however,
Kane has portrayed the bounty hunter three times — albeit only in Star Wars video games.
Kane's first outing as Boba Fett came during 2000's Star Wars: Demolition,
a game in which players pit different vehicles from the franchise against each other.
Kane voiced Fett once again in the 2001 real-time strategy game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.
Finally, he played Fett in 2003's Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy,
which has a particularly special place in many fans' hearts.
"Boba Fett!"
"This doesn't concern you, Jedi. Just walk away."
Attack of the Clones reveals a whole lot about Boba Fett. First, it's shown that the
bounty hunter is a clone created as payment to Jango Fett by the clone makers of Kamino,
in exchange for the use of his DNA to create their clone army. The movie also
makes clear that Boba Fett's appreciation of violence emerged at a young age. Finally,
it's revealed that Fett saw his father die on Geonosis at Mace Windu's hands. The image of
young Boba Fett holding Jango's helmet is one of the most memorable of the prequel trilogy.
Young Boba Fett is played by the New Zealand-born actor Daniel Logan. Playing Boba left an
interesting mark on the young performer, too — when Looper spoke to him in April 2020, he
revealed that, like Jake Lloyd, he suffered plenty of bullying for his role in the trilogy. He said:
"I think we're very, very blessed that we came in during the era right before social media
and this whole entire internet explosion, because I think it could've turned out worse."
Luckily, this hasn't stopped him embracing his connection with the
Star Wars saga — and when Logan got the call to reprise his role on The Clone Wars,
he pretty much jumped at the opportunity.
In 1998, LucasArts and Nintendo teamed up to release the flight action game Star Wars:
Rogue Squadron. In this game, the player guides the eponymous rebel
group through a variety of mission objectives. It proved popular enough to spawn two sequels,
including 2003's Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.
Actor Chris Cox played multiple characters in Rebel Strike,
including Boba Fett. His Fett performance is spotlighted by a mission that recreates Leia's
futile pursuit of the bounty hunter when he leaves Bespin with the frozen Han Solo.
While Rebel Strike is the only game in which Cox portrayed Boba Fett,
it's only one of many Star Wars games he's worked on. The prolific voice actor can be
heard across the Star Wars galaxy, from Fallen Order to Battlefront to The Force Unleashed.
While fans in his home country of New Zealand were already familiar with
his work before he stepped into the Star Wars universe, it was Temuera Morrison's
pitch-perfect performance as Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones that made him known to
audiences around the world. Since that film establishes that Boba is a clone of Jango,
it also laid the foundation for Morrison to soften the disappointment so many
fans suffered in Return of the Jedi by finally returning Boba Fett to the land of the living.
"Oh yeah, we got the Mandalorian blues, on the sands of Tatooine."
Morrison voiced Boba Fett a number of times before he played him in a live-action capacity, though.
When the Special Editions of the original trilogy got new home releases in 2004, Jason Wingreen's
voice was replaced with Morrison's. Morrison went on to voice the character in a number
of video games, including 2005's Battlefront II and 2006's Empire at War. More recently, in the
second season of The Mandalorian, Morrison's Boba Fett joins up with Din Djarin to help
rescue Grogu from the clutches of Moff Gideon. Try saying that six times…. That season ended
with the revelation that Fett will be getting his own solo series on Disney+ in December 2021.
Dee Bradley Baker has enjoyed a long, varied, and incredibly successful voice acting career,
including a whole lot of work in the Star Wars universe. He's perhaps
best known for voicing Captain Rex in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch,
though he also played a number of clone troopers in each series..
Baker portrayed Boba Fett in both of the Force Unleashed games, too.
In 2011, the year after Force Unleashed II was released,
fans were able to hear him voice the bounty hunter once again, albeit as part of a very different
production. That year, Disney's Hollywood Studios debuted Star Tours — The Adventures Continue,
an attraction that sees Baker reprise his role as the galaxy's most dangerous bounty hunter.
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