The Big Picture
George Lucas’ Star Wars was always intended to be enormous, told across multiple movies. For example, one needs to look no further than the title of an early draft of his script, “The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga One: The Star Wars”. However, while shooting the 1977 original, few could predict the accuracy of Lucas’ predictions for how the franchise would evolve, with some actors portraying the now-iconic characters for over 40 years. “Harrison [Ford], Mark Hamill, Billy [Dee Williams] and I [became] heritage players” according to C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels, who admits that he doubted Star Wars would amount to anything special at the time of filming.
The actors involved have been vocal for decades about their reservations during the production, with Alec Guinness writing at the time, “Rubbish dialogue reaches me […] and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable.” Even after shooting the original movie, George Lucas found himself surrounded by naysayers, due to the messiness of his edit before it was saved by Richard Chew, Paul Hirsch, and Lucas’ wife Marcia Lucas. His contemporaries such as Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma had issues with the first cut, even rewriting the opening crawl for Lucas. It’s funny to imagine now, given its worldwide success, but before the world had been introduced to these iconic characters, the idea of working on Star Wars personally offended some people – namely Anthony Daniels.
Anthony Daniels Was Forced To Audition For Star Wars (Pun Intended)
Anthony Daniels is an English actor who starred in hundreds of theater productions with the BBC Drama Company and the National Theatre before being invited to meet with George Lucas. The director was interested in Daniels’ mime skills, indenting to replace the actor’s voice in post-production, but Daniels had no interest in sci-fi after demanding a refund for 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. Needless to say, he turned down the role of C-3PO as a result. Daniels told Digital Spy that his agent forced him attend the audition. “I didn’t want the interview with George Lucas. I was insulted to be offered the part, or to discuss the part of a robot in a low budget science fiction.”
Despite the “incomprehensible” script, a concept drawing of the character eventually piqued Anthony Daniels’ interest. He joined the cast soon after but his appreciation of the role did not last for long. Lucas spent months casting Daniels’ vocal replacement before eventually deciding to invite Daniels himself back to re-record his own voice. He agreed but upon the film’s release, Lucas and his team were keen to maintain some mystique around their seemingly-real robotic cast member, and suppressed “the human input of the mechanical man”. As a result, much of the film’s success evaded Anthony Daniels, whose less-than-fond memories of wearing the uncomfortable costume combined with his lack of praise, led him to decide not to return for the film’s sequel at first.
C-3PO Changed the Game for Face-Unseen Actors in Movies
After arranging the conditions of his return with George Lucas, Anthony Daniels starred in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. His voice-only portrayal of the “naked” C-3PO in 1999’s The Phantom Menace proved unsatisfying for the actor, who preferred to provide his character with a physical performance too, so the actor also became a puppeteer for the shoot. As the Star Wars franchise gained popularity, it not only changed Daniels’ mind about the idea of acting in face-unseen roles, but it also paved the way for other actors in similar roles throughout Hollywood.
Actor Doug Jones has been praised for his performances in similar roles to Daniels’ C-3PO, starring in critically acclaimed films such as Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. As technology has evolved into digital puppetry, eventual Star Wars alumn Andy Serkis became a pioneer in performance capture, delivering stellar performances in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Adventures of Tintin, even receiving Oscar buzz at one time for his role as Caesar in War for the Planet of the Apes. Needless to say, Anthony Daniels is much happier about playing C-3PO nowadays, so much so that he has the opposite problem with the character and franchise!
Now Anthony Daniels Wishes He Was C-3PO More, Not Less
As is to be expected from the sheer scale of present-day Star Wars, Anthony Daniels wishes he and his character were utilized more in the franchise. “He’s been slightly sidelined,” he said of the J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson sequel trilogy. “People haven’t quite known how to write him as the originals were written.” It seems Anthony Daniels has made a full U-turn in terms of his views on George Lucas’ “incomprehensible” script. He went on to condemn the movies that misuse the character of C-3PO by including him for fan service rather than to get involved in the plot.
“3PO has sort of remained the same […] He depends very much on the circumstances he’s placed in, because he’s not a proactive character. He sort of reacts to all the stuff that’s going on, generally with horror and so on. But he has to be part of the main action to really function.” That being said, it’s clear the actor doesn’t mind whether or not that plot-servicing appearance is brief since the actor recently appeared for a cameo in the Disney+ series Ahsoka, which stars Rosario Dawson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as characters previously established in the animated Clone Wars and Rebels series.
Another actor to return for the Ahsoka series is Hayden Christensen, who first appeared as Anakin Skywalker in Attack of the Clones. Fans’ positive reactions to Christensen’s return serve as evidence that characters and performances once dismissed by the masses can eventually become celebrated and yearned for with time. Despite the prequel trilogy’s lackluster reputation in the 2000s and 2010s, it just goes to show that with time, even the prequel characters have the power to become “heritage characters” for future generations. It seems fans who initially despised the prequels are now learning the same lesson Anthony Daniels learned decades ago. How the tables have turned! Or, in the words of C-3PO himself, “Sometimes, I just don’t understand human behavior!”
