I Am C-3PO--The Inside Story Page 19

  I don’t live in a See-Threepio-Star Wars shrine – it’s not my thing. Stuff takes up a lot of room. But I loved the honour of Threepio being part of the Star Wars postage stamp collection. Cute design, practical, self-adhesive, so no licking required. Flat, too, for easy storage in a drawer. There too, rather more bulky – but it makes me laugh – is the show-off, giant, shiny Pez dispenser. Monumental. But not to be shown-off too often.

  Only one item stands discretely on a corner table. Over several years, I had been lucky to be involved in various animation series. Droids, Rebels, Clone Wars – they went on to become wildly popular in their own right. Such fun to perform. Usually I was on my own in a London studio. The director might or might not be on a laptop screen at my side, watching me on Skype. Sometimes it was just their voice through a headset. Threepio is already a slight exaggeration of a personality so there was no need to augment the simple graphics too much. But the dramatic situations could be even more extreme than in the movies. The cartoons were broadcast but also available on disc, for endless replays. I so enjoyed being a part of them all. In particular, under the expert and creative direction of Dave Filoni, the animation in Clones was exceptional.

  But for me, it was the hysterically funny and well-observed The Yoda Chronicles that I cherish. I loved them so much, I would have done that job for no charge – but I didn’t tell them that. It was all in Lego characters and was just such hilarious fun.

  The two Michaels and I would often be tearful with mirth. Usually I was in a London studio while director, Michael Donovan was in his in San Francisco. Brilliant and inventive writer, Michael Price, was often on speaker phone in his car on the 40 freeway in LA, driving to his other job – writing scripts for The Simpsons.

  Once we’d done the voice work, the animators got involved. I so enjoyed seeing the rough-cut animations and being able to spot some additional speech opportunities that I could add. It wasn’t always perfect – a whole gag was based on the fact that Lego Chewie was too plump to follow Lego Threepio and squeeze through a gap in the Lego wall. Oops! Rewrite – all Lego characters are the same size.

  We adored working together – jolly script conferences on the phone, followed by intense recording sessions. Eventually we would meet up on stage at Celebration. Such a joy to show off our stuff in front of a live audience. But now, a surprise gift from Michael and Michael and our Lego masters. A twenty-pound, twenty-inch high Lego likeness of Threepio – a wondrous piece of chunky pop art, in yellow bricks. It made it all the way back to London, in spite of some curious questions from British Airways. He stands there on a table as a key – a reminder of magic times.

  And what a thrill to be in The Lego Movie – an action-packed cast of super heroes, all made of plastic brick. I eventually saw it in a state-of-the-art theatre on 42nd Street in New York. It seemed somehow a fitting place for such a whacky production. For me, it had been a very brief recording session back in London. Now I would see the results. The packed audience loved the ingenious film. But when Threepio briefly yelled from the Lego Falcon, the cheers drowned out the theatre’s super multi-track audio system – before the craft jumped to Lego light speed and was gone. It reminded me just how much people love Star Wars.

  And I loved the association with Lego. They invited me to their production facilities in Billund in Denmark. I flew in their private aircraft, slightly amused at the Lego logo on the tail fin. The implication that I was in a plane made of bricks was briefly unnerving. But what an honour. I had such a good time addressing the teams. But an even better one, visiting the factory. Amazing to see machines relating to each other, stamping plastic, delivering supplies, collecting parts. Each one travelling smoothly on concealed tracks. All in complete harmony. Threepio would have been impressed. It was possibly proof of my growing empathetic relationship with him that I noticed my host switching off the lights as we left, leaving those poor droids to work in the dark.

  At another Celebration, in London, I signed something that wasn’t quite the usual collectable. An airplane – not a real one but a sleek, fifteen-foot model. What a respectful homage to the character. All Nippon Airlines – ANA – were already flying a real plane in the style of Artoo-Detoo, all white with blue bands, that was instantly recognisable. It had flown us all back to London from the Los Angeles premiere of The Force Awakens. I knew there was a BB-8 version – white, with his signature orange decals. And now Threepio. Apparently, it had been a major challenge to turn the humanoid droid into a plane-shaped design. Early attempts left him looking as if he’d dropped dead and been placed in a coffin between two wings. So ANA’s inventive design team and Lucasfilm’s Howard Roffman rethought the whole thing. They cleverly placed iconic elements of Threepio’s “look” around the fuselage. Time passed. Now I had a beautiful plane to keep for myself – not a real one. But a four feet long model. A gift from ANA.

  Time passed again. Now, I was addressing two hundred guests and press and television crews way below me as I stood at the door of the ANA Threepio plane. A real one – a brand new, shiny, yellow one, parked in a huge hangar in Tokyo. What a thrill, as I welcomed the crowd in fluent Japanese – days in the phonetic learning but also written in big black marker across the top step, just in case. Then I autographed the fuselage of the spectacular craft. Seeing the essence of Threepio on such a grand scale made me feel quite emotional. But here was a craft simply too big to take home. I can just about accommodate the four-foot version.

  Rather smaller is the sat-nav I recorded. What a strange script. Just a list of words – pages and pages of words. The computer would eventually stitch them together with brilliant algorithms. They gave me a gizmo for my own use. It worked extremely efficiently and some drivers found it fun to have Threepio on board, as their navigator. But how weird to hear myself telling me where to go, in places I’d never visited before. I’ll admit that, in the end, the uncanniness of it all began to unnerve me. Eventually, I switched to another voice. Please don’t tell Threepio.

  Another favourite piece. A beautiful blue box. Golden Threepio proudly presenting a bowl of fruit and cereal. Kellogg’s “C-3POs”. I have a pack of the original product – unopened. I wonder what it would taste like some thirty years later? Probably the same. The snack had started life as totally unsweetened and healthy, and they were indeed “O” shaped. It was a fun play on words and we shot amusing commercials around exotic Mono Lake in California. Those few tourists visiting this National Park were clearly astounded to find Threepio wandering about with a bunch of Rock Monsters.

  They would have been amused, too, to see me taking a break in the open air. The crew suddenly arrived with a silver tray, bearing all the china necessities for serving tea and biscuits. They’d wanted me to feel at home in the middle of this lunar landscape. A thoughtful team effort. Threepio would really have appreciated the proper rules of etiquette that they exhibited towards me.

  Less proper – it snowed. Fortunately, someone had a hair dryer. On full blast, it stopped me from freezing to a halt. The ads were great, the product not so great. They added sugar to the recipe and stuck two Os together. “Twin rings of honey sweetened oats fused together for a truly galactic breakfast.” We shot some more commercials in the sandy wastes around Las Vegas. It was warmer, but the producers were not amused when I insisted the shapes were “C-3P8s”.

  For the product launch in Tampa, lights and lasers revealed an eight-foot box revolving on stage. It stopped in a whirl of smoke and colour in front of the applauding throng. It opened and out stepped Threepio, waving and smiling at the sheer whackyness of what I was doing. Of course, you couldn’t see I was smiling – but I was. Back at home, the “hero” box is the star – the hand-painted art box from the stills shoot. Wearing only the top half of Threepio, I clutched a delicious bowl of healthy-looking breakfast items. But there was a problem. The milk made the product go soggy as we shot. The solution – a gloopy white mixture purchased from a local ph
armacy. The art director kept repositioning the fruit and the cereal. He used a cotton bud to push the white stuff around for the best effect, and kept sucking it clean – again and again. I knew he was flying home the next day. I wondered if he’d be okay – the gloop was a laxative.

  It’s hidden in a drawer somewhere, out of sight – an example of possibly the worst piece of Star Wars merch, ever. I know it’s somewhere. It’s made of glazed ceramic in yellow and white. It haunts my dreams. Threepio reclines with his hands resting on his knees. His legs are parted to allow the insertion of a roll of sticky tape. It’s meant to sit on a desk – possibly a gynaecologist’s desk. I did enquire if they were ever going to make a sister version – Threepio on his hands and knees with a rather larger roll inserted behind.

  Perhaps to be found in a bathroom.

  53 forgery

  I was amazed to receive fan mail. Amazed and flattered.

  People, whom I had never met, were taking the trouble to write to me. To tell me how much they liked what I did in A New Hope. It was music to my ears. And every other bit of me. In my experience, there was not a lot of time for praise on set. Getting the next shot was paramount. But neither was there much appreciation afterwards. How lovely then, to receive through the post, unsolicited praise for Threepio, albeit attached to a request for an autograph. I tried to oblige, if there was a photo enclosed. I had nothing to send. No one supplied me with a stock of official photos.

  Eventually, my sense of embarrassment was strong enough to make me create hundreds of cheap prints. My face on the left. Threepio’s on the right. Or maybe the other way. It was long ago. I left a space in the middle. Some fans enclosed a photo and an envelope already addressed to towns across America. As the film’s distribution continued over the months, these addresses would become more exotic – a simple indication of its global popularity. I signed the cards, addressed the envelopes, licked the stamps and slid them into the red letter box in the street. It seemed the right thing to do.

  Then I found out that other members of the cast were actually selling their autograph. It sounds ridiculously naïve, but I was shocked. It didn’t seem right at all. Here were fans wanting some kind of innocent souvenir of their wondrous Star Wars experience – they were showing me their appreciation. The least I could do was to respond. Even now that feels quaintly innocent. Because I would gradually learn the facts.

  Of course, many fans appreciate an autograph as a record of a meeting. But the growth in collecting scribbled names seems to be massive. The hobby attracts thousands, or maybe millions, of collectors – all craving the complete set. The commercial side of it has rocketed. Now, I too charge fans for my signature. I’d be crazy not to. I still sign many things as a courtesy but I occasionally attend conventions where it is clearly a commercial event.

  I do try to give a few moments of real time to fans who have stood in long lines to meet me and others. But there’s always the concern of taking a pen to some treasured piece of memorabilia, often already emblazoned with signatures, hoping it’s not going to spatter and blob and ruin the cherished item. It’s quite a challenge, as I see the queue stretching away and my brain hurts, along with my hand.

  My website, www.anthonydaniels.com, has never been commercial. No autographs to purchase through the mail – nothing but goodwill. I’m occasionally bothered by seeing fans encouraged to send requests to addresses, supplied by companies claiming to know my contact details. Their information is useless and simply serves to frustrate fans.

  What my site does demonstrate, is a large gallery of forgeries gleaned from the Web. A glance over the small images shows the range of attempts to forge my signature. Some are quite close. Others add insult to injury in their pathetic attempts, dashed off with a Sharpie. But these fakes go on sale for alarmingly large sums. Maybe it doesn’t matter that it’s not the real thing, if a fan believes it is. I remember learning that, in medieval times, conmen would roam the country selling bits of St. Peter’s shinbone or pieces of the “True Cross” to Christian believers – chicken bones and wood shavings. There have always been scams, the unscrupulous taking advantage of the innocent, but the Internet has multiplied the issue by many, many times over.

  FBI? A message from agent X. I was about to dump it in the Spam, along with offers to launder the inheritance dollars of a Nigerian prince. Then I noticed there was a phone number. I left it for a couple of days before I rang.

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation. How may I direct your call?”

  Gosh. This was really real.

  I was soon talking with a real FBI agent, part of Operation Bullpen. They’d appreciate it if I would help them in the trial of an accused forger. They didn’t want to subpoena me – just asking nicely. Weeks later I was studying a large family bible. Each page was devoted to a name. Below were repeated attempts at an acceptable signature. The sides of the pages decorated with swipes of a suitably coloured Sharpie, where the accused had tested each pen. Now, I was in a courtroom in San Diego, witnessing that my signature had been faked on an item sold by the accused, standing there in dock. Somehow the sheer size of the projected image made me even more troubled. I could certainly confirm that it wasn’t my writing. His counsel asked how I could tell. Perhaps the fact that I had signed my name many times over the years gave me some kind of expert knowledge. But I did give the court a few technical pointers which strongly suggested that a hand, other than mine, had written my name. But mine wasn’t the only forgery in evidence that day. The room was filled with boxes of hundreds of pictures of any personality you could name – as yet unsigned. All – claimed the accused – for his personal use.

  Operation Bullpen had begun with an undercover FBI agent sending the accused a marked poster and payment, with a request that it be signed, in person by Sir Alec Guinness. It eventually arrived back in the post, duly signed by Sir Alec who sadly, had been dead for many years. The perp got just three.

  There have been all sorts of attempts to verify autographs. Certificates of Authenticity are just as easy to fake as the signature they testify. They are not worth the paper they’re written on – literally. Holographic stickers mean little. Really, the best way to know you have a genuine autograph is to see it written in person by that person. Impossible most of the time, but the only sure way.

  On the other hand, if you believe what you have is real, then for you – it is.

  54 red

  “Hello. My name is Kathy Kennedy and I’m the producer of the next Star Wars film. Would it be all right if J.J. Abrams called you? He’s the director.”

  I have had some phone calls in my time but this was one of the more exquisite. Then silence for a month. What was going on? The phone rang. It was like speaking with an excited school boy. J.J. had seen A New Hope when he was ten years old. Eventually I said – enough of the adulation. What did he want?

  “Would you like to be in my movie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like just to do the voice?”

  “No.”

  “Quite right.”

  “But I would like a new suit.”

  “Of course.”

  It was a great start. Such full-on enthusiasm.

  Now I was at Pinewood – wondering what was next.

  “And please give me your phone.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can’t take photos of the pages.”

  I was surprised. I can barely use my phone as a phone, let alone a spy camera. I handed it over to the Guardian of the Scripts who showed me into a small office. The room had a security camera peering down. And a young woman reading a book. She looked up.

  “Hello. I’m Daisy. I’m playing Rey.”

  Of course, it meant nothing to me. But there was a black book on the other desk. Perhaps I would find out a little more. I sat down and opened the cover. It was a shock – every page inside the thick volume was deep red,
with black lettering, my name writ large, spread diagonally across the words. This was “The Script”.

  It wasn’t easy. The dense story was hard to absorb. The red security pages made it worse – headachingly hard to focus on. It was a long read, but an intriguing one. Finally, I got an overall view and thankfully, and a little sadly, closed the book. I accepted Threepio had very little to do in this story. But at least he was there – and so was I.

  Daisy was still reading as I left – young enough to be at least my granddaughter – and lovely. Now, I knew who Rey was, and what that would mean. I turned back, interrupting her concentration.

  “Your life will never be the same again.”

  Unoriginal – but true.

  David Merryweather arrived at the flat with an exploded-view version of my suit, on his laptop. An electro-mechanical CAD genius, he was in charge of the redesign. It looked wonderfully hopeful on screen. The days of torture inside my “Iron Maiden” might be over at last. Eventually, we moved on to first fittings at Pinewood. No more glass fibre. The costume was 3D printed.

  I stood there in various pieces of white plastic, as we discussed which bits worked, and the other bits that didn’t. Suddenly, J.J. rushed in. He dashed off numerous selfies, even though I was wearing an early prototype. He was still in schoolboy mode. His genius enthusiasm was overt and infectious. But we didn’t agree about everything. In particular, the arm. Threepio’s left arm. It was going to be red.

  “Why?”

  “It shows history. A back story.”