CT "The Man Behind Darth Vader" - New Interview with David Prowse

jackbo487 · jackbo487, Oct 3, 2012 at 1:06 PM

hi all, new here.

Wanted to share a great (and long) new interview with David Prowse...apologies if this is in the incorrect forum or something, I wasn't quite sure where to post it...

anyway, here's the link - http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2012/10/01/the-man-behind-darth-vader/

Hope you like it.

Team Padme · Team Padme, Oct 3, 2012 at 1:30 PM

Nice interview! Glad to hear his thoughts on the prequels.

Darth_Nub · Darth_Nub, Oct 3, 2012 at 5:02 PM

Does he still think his Cornwall accent was ever considered as an option for Vader's?

DP: When I got the script for Star Wars, I did all of Darth Vader’s dialogue, all the way through the movie. But I kept turning to George and saying, “What are we going to do with Darth Vader’s dialogue, because everything I’m saying is coming muffled through the mask?” He said, “Oh yeah, don’t worry, we’re going to the sound studios and we’ll record all of your dialogue at the end of the movie.” Well, unfortunately, I assumed wrongly that it was me that was going to go into the sound studio and record all the dialogue. Anyway, what happened was they got to the end of the movie and they took it back to America because they couldn’t get all the special effects they wanted.
So when they were in America they had a choice of either flying me all the way over to Hollywood, or wherever they were doing the dubbing, for half a dozen lines because Darth Vader didn’t say an awful lot during the course of the picture, or the alternative was to employ a voice-over actor – and James Earl Jones fit the part perfectly. think he did a wonderful job.

As Carrie Fisher tells it, Prowse was referred to on set as 'Darth Farmer', because that's what he sounded like delivering his lines. He might as well have been saying "Get orff moy land" to Obi-Wan.

This is hogwash, too:

RCM: How did Sebastian Shaw get the role of the dying Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker?
DP: What happened there was Sebastian Shaw was a great friend of Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi), and by chance Shaw was having a bad time of it financially. So Shaw said to Sir Alec Guinness, “Do you think you can get in touch with George Lucas and see if he can get me a part in this movie you’re doing?” And so Alec Guinness asked George, and George said the only thing available is the role of the dying Darth Vader. So that’s how Sebastian Shaw came to do it. And that was all that we saw of him in the film, that tiny little bit.

Unfortunately, everybody was expecting to see me, and unfortunately for me, they got to see Sebastian Shaw. I would have loved to play that part. And it had nothing to do with any problems they were having with me, or anything like that. It was simply Alec doing his friend a favor and George was doing him a favor, as it were.

I read an interview with Sebastian Shaw a while back, Alec Guinness wasn't even aware he was in ROTJ until he bumped into him one day at the studio. When Guinness asked him what he was working on, Shaw replied, "Some science-fiction thing."
So no, Prowse wasn't somehow robbed of the role of Anakin Skywalker by the old-boys' network.

DarthBoba · DarthBoba, Oct 3, 2012 at 6:08 PM

Prowse's ego is always something to behold. Don't see Ray Park going on and on about being "the man behind Darth Maul", do you?

Silas Tri · Silas Tri, Oct 10, 2012 at 7:19 PM

Good interview, thanks for posting.

Zer0 · Zer0, Oct 10, 2012 at 9:51 PM

Interesting read, good post.

gezvader28 · gezvader28, Nov 3, 2012 at 11:31 AM

jackbo487 said: ↑

hi all, new here.

Wanted to share a great (and long) new interview with David Prowse...apologies if this is in the incorrect forum or something, I wasn't quite sure where to post it...

anyway, here's the link - http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2012/10/01/the-man-behind-darth-vader/

Hope you like it.

I'd never heard the story about Sebastian Shaw before .

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CT "The Man Behind Darth Vader" - New Interview with David Prowse

jackbo487 Jedi Youngling

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