W: It's a really interesting read your book. I think when a lot of actors talk about
the moment that changed their life you know the job that made
them who they are, it's often that they're working in a cafe or a
restaurant and moving onto this big job. But in fact you were working on the
London stage and we're slightly dismissive about even going for the
meeting which I thought was really interesting. Could you tell us a bit about that?
AD: I was working on a London stage right behind us in Piccadilly Circus at
the Criterion Theatre. My agent rang and it's always a phone call really that
changes in actor's life. And she told me about this production, American film,
a man called George Lucas who neither of us had heard of. Imagine!
And he wanted to see me for the part of a robot in his science fiction film. It
was very low-budget and all that kind of thing so don't get excited,
you know. I was far from excited. What do you mean a robot?! I spent three years at
drama school you don't think I'm gonna cover my face going you know I am a
Dalek. No, not so much. So I said I'm not interested. She said don't be so... stupid.
Go and see him you never know what it will lead to. And this is absolutely
real.So you know I did what I was told and I walked up to Soho Square, a few
blocks away from here. And got into eventually the office, the outside office
of his room. And I just knew I was going to be meeting this kind of Hollywood
you know big kind of toad like figure with a cigar and all that kind of thing.
And the door opened and there was George, looking so normal, so shy, welcoming
polite; I liked him, you know, you liked the guy.
But I still didn't really know why I was there. I was just you know
filling it in. And we began to talk and he was not that interesting. So you're an
actor? Because he was seeing everybody. So we sat there having this really
boring conversation. Sounds rude but it's actually it was a very faltering, 'You're
you're good at mime?' 'Yes, quite good.' Because I knew that he wanted somebody
who would wear a really wacky costume who could get a performance through it.
So that was cool. And then the thing that really changed
the whole experience was one of Ralph McQuarrie's paintings. And I learned the
word concept painting as I think you've read, ideas of how a film might look before
you've actually filmed it. You get somebody to paint a concept and one of
the paintings was this character that we were talking about. And I've just got to
say it attracted me. I was taken in, I was absorbed by this thing that I was
looking at. A 2d painting, nothing to do with me. There was a kind of innocence, a
kind of vulnerability about this thing that Ralph had painted. Anyway that was
the end of that and they sent a script round the next day and I'd never
read a film script. That wasn't my kind of life, this was
something I'd never thought of, being in a film, I just wanted to act.
I didn't know really what in, I just wanted to act. So the next day I went back and
this time I was far from diffident. I really wanted to do this.
We talked around science fiction because it wasn't my thing, you know.
At the end, in a pause, and I think the French have a phrase for it
'petit mort', little death, little silence in the world I just said 'Please may I play the part?'
And George went: 'Sure.'
And just like that you were Threepio. It's so funny, we can see the figure there and I
think audiences are so familiar with what Threepio looks like. It's really
interesting to hear through the early stages of filming you and Maxi,
your sort of dresser and confidant, were finding the shape of Threepio and
finding a sort of way of wearing it that would work because it sounds incredibly uncomfortable.
It was uncomfortable and you know no disrespect to anybody
involved in creating it and certainly not to Maxi for trying to
get it on me without actually scarring me for life. Literally. A lot of the edges
were sharp all that kind of thing. Because we'd rather ran out of time
after six months to make something really usable with no rehearsal period
or whatever. And so it really was a crash course in
in nightmare acting. Because I was used to rehearsal time on television or on
stage. I was used to not standing in the desert. I was certainly not used to
wearing clobber like this.
W: As well as the sort of physical uncomfortableness of
wearing that costume you've mentioned about how once the first film
came out there was a slight uncomfortableness which was that the
film producers were quite keen for people to think that it was an actual
robot, that there was no actor inside it. And that you felt that that slightly took
away from of course all the hard work that you've put in as an actor to make
Threepio come alive. That must have been quite hard for you as an actor...
AD: Because on one hand my job had been, and I had accepted it with
full responsibility: to play a robot. And the remarkable thing to me was that
people believed. But I'd wanted them to believe and that's fine. But if you're
playing a character as an actor the audience should believe you for those
two hours on stage or the two and a bit hours on the film, but then you know
there should be credits and everyone goes yes of course it's played
by Anthony Daniels. But we don't mind that whilst we're watching the film. But
afterwards, yeah, well done you did good.
Nobody ever said well done, you did good. That hurt.
W: You also mention as well, the slightly
not fractious relationship with George but originally for example when you were
recording the voice he didn't want to use your voice and they were talking
about finding other actors and most people will be shocked to read that
because of course your voice is absolutely threepio.
AD: They're predisposed to that now, they don't got a choice no more. I was shocked because he could have,
George Lucas, could have mentioned at the time. You know, 'Anthony, the voice you're
doing is crap, can you do another one? What else can you do?' You know, he didn't,
he just thought I can remove that. Now, in his defense, he'd written something and I
come along and went yes it's awfully good but I'm going to do it this way.
There's nothing rude or impertinent about it, it's just
the way actors are they, they do it their way, unless told otherwise.
Which is why you have a director in a show but he was busy doing all sorts of
other things and thought I could do the robot later.
W: And of course one film, becomes three becomes six becomes nine. You've done animated series, you've been
involved in computer games; it's become a sort of lifelong job for you.
I wonder whether going back to the younger you who went to that first meeting if
you could go back, in fact maybe if you could go backstage to Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead when you were doing that part just before you got the
meeting; what advice would you give young Anthony Daniels about the meeting, about the job?
AD: That's a really hard one. I suppose, to quote Stoppard almost,
you know a coin has two sides. No doubt about it it changed my life,
Star Wars, whatever. And somehow the might of it, the majesty, the
breadth of it, the world coverage if you will whether or not people at
the beginning knew it was me doing this; whether they knew or not
various offshoots of it began to, with my permission, with my total acceptance,
nobody was strong-arming me into doing anything, but I became almost bound to it
with a professional sense and also with a 'it's a job, I got I got another job.'
Actors need work for two reasons. They need money to live but also your
brain as an actor says feed me, feed me. So I was luckily bound to it but being
imprisoned, it's kind of a double thing isn't it. So I'm not sure I'd say to
me do it. I don't know, I'm sure I wouldn't still be acting because you
know to be honest I wasn't that good of an actor. I was very, very average.
Eventually I would move on to the sort of parts on TV or whatever,
alright if I wasn't there there would be a strange pause, but then the show
would go on. Do you understand?
W: I totally understand
AD: And I'm not being falsely modest you know I'm being absolutely, as I try to be
in the book, fairly sort of open about it. I'm not ashamed or whatever. I just know
that the sort of actors I now look at on stage and on television and in films and
of course the industry is so multiplied and is now so multifaceted; the acting...
professionally the acting fraternity has become amazingly wonderful and
remarkable. You know I grew up in the days of Laurence Olivier and some went
'Ya huh', how shall I say... histrionics were slightly the thing.
W: A slightly fruitier delivery. AD: A little fruity.
W: Well, as I said, it's been a fascinating
insight into you know all of those films and all the things that you've
been involved in Anthony and this sort of I think the frankness with which you
talk about what it was like to be inside Threepio it was really interesting so
thank you so much for your memoir.
AD: Thank you