I Am C-3PO--The Inside Story Read online

Of course, Carrie did die, tragically and unexpectedly, not that long after we finished filming – before she could see the results of her own brilliant work in The Last Jedi.

  Quite frankly, in those latter days, Carrie seemed to glory in arriving for a walk-through on set first thing, looking like – well, let’s say she was not a morning person. When we began the glorious task of filming The Force Awakens she would arrive, papoosed in a down jacket against the chill of an unlit stage, her latest signature coiffure bound up in a matronly hair net. As ever, she clutched her comfort drink like a curious product commercial. It was part of her support system. Permanently grasped or stuffed, last minute, behind a concealing piece of scenery, that can of Diet Coke was a reminder that the secret location of our rebel base was in fact at Pinewood Studios, UK, planet Earth.

  Her character hadn’t appeared in the prequels. I’d rather missed her, and the familiar presence of Mark and Harrison. But those productions were long gone. Now it was the seventh story in the canon. Life and times had moved on for all of us. We had become Legacy Players. I kept saying “heritage” but was told that applied to varieties of vegetables.

  I sensed Carrie took some reassurance that there was at least one old face on set, a face she knew – mine – Threepio’s. At one point, Leia generously awarded him a warm oil bath as a gesture of thanks for a job well done. He was very happy. That scene never made it. But we had other moments together.

  We quietly rehearsed our marks and lines. It was difficult to read our sides – the day’s script – printed black on red on tiny pages stuffed inside a plastic holder with our names loudly proclaiming our right to see these “eyes only” words. It was all surreal – chill and gloomy in the bleak work lights. But J.J. brought along his big brain and warm heart. We wandered through the scene, as he transferred what was playing inside his head to the actuality of the stage floor. Once everyone got the rough idea, we went back to our trailers for a couple of hours and breakfast. We relaxed while the lighting crew did their work. But I realised that Carrie was far removed from the fresh-eyed girl I’d met decades before. I found it a little unnerving. But I find looking in the mirror equally so, these days.

  On set once more, there she was, beautiful, quietly commanding. Makeup and Hair had returned Carrie to the Princess I knew – a General now. Her eyes still spoke so softly, so eloquently. But the lines were sometimes elusive. I could certainly empathise. Relaxing back in our trailer-park world, she would be her gently funny self, sadly admitting that it was all more of a challenge than it used to be.

  And so it continued into The Last Jedi in a similar way. At least now I was prepared for this gradual decline. What never seemed to change was her gentle, kind personality, her wit and amused self-deprecation. The loving affection from Rian and the cast and crew hopefully helped her to be as comfortable as was possible in her determination to get it right.

  I can’t actually remember the first time or the last time we met. On set, at a party, over dinner, over dinner with Gary, her canine companion. It doesn’t matter. But back in 1976, trotting next to her in another rebel base, running to congratulate Luke for his heroic deeds, she giggled, clutching her bouncing boobs – more X-Rated than PG-13.

  We laughed again, when it transpired that the crowd artists had no idea who Luke was or what he had done to a bad thing called the Death Star. They hadn’t seen the movie yet – no one had. Poor Mark jumped down from his X-wing and was forced to congratulate them as they ran past, as opposed to the other way round. The second take was better. Lots of well-dones and back-slappings for Mark and less boob from Carrie.

  And we both laughed over a delicious pastilla a year later. The fancy-dressed maître d’ at Dar Maghreb on Hollywood Boulevard, robed like an extra from The Desert Song, fulsomely praised her performance in A New Hope. He slightly spoilt the moment for me. He added, that the only thing he hadn’t liked in the film was that silly gold robot. The man was English. Carrie doubled the tip. She was always generous and seemed very at home with English people in general. She’d studied at London’s Central School of Drama. I had auditioned for a place there, too. They’d turned me down.

  It had been such a giggle, that night in Hollywood. And I slept well in my room in Westwood. Strangely, I didn’t dream of the Princess or the tubby English guy in his djellaba. I dreamed of my new culinary experience – the amazing Moroccan invention of pigeon and sugar and spices. And nuts.

  After A New Hope shattered box office records, I watched Carrie and the others being interviewed and fêted around the world’s press. By the time we met again for Empire, she was a bright international star. She was just as kooky and kind as ever – but now in a different league. The kookiness started, first thing. The ADs gave her a call one hour earlier than normal, so her driver could wake her up with a pot of coffee, and get her to the studio and on set on time. As I said, Carrie had never been a morning person.

  But I am one of the few who have looked into her beautiful eyes and had them look directly, deeply, warmly back into mine – and back into See-Threepio’s eyes, too. Like Mark, the reality and honesty of her performance coaxed the audience to believe my gold man was a real, valued companion, even though she would brutally switch me off in the Falcon’s cockpit.

  She loved a live audience and played up mercilessly. I couldn’t ever get used to the glitter thing. At conventions she would sprinkle fans with the stuff – Pixie Dust. It got everywhere for days. It seemed like she wanted those encounters to go on for ever. Her fans loved it. Fan I might have been, but I found the stubborn sparkles more than irritating – or maybe she was paying me back for the time I greeted her on stage. With a hug.

  I was hosting another Celebration somewhere, and interviewing all sorts of cast and crew. There was a great atmosphere, though it was a little hot, with all the stage lights aimed at me and the guests. Memorably, my introduction of Oscar-winning special effects maestro, Lorne Peterson, was hysterical, for me at least. It was a very wide stage and I gave him an appropriately grand intro for the lovely and talented man he is. The applause rose. And died. Nothing happened. I walked to the wings. There was Lorne happily waiting to be introduced. I hadn’t realised he was a little hard of hearing. So we started his bit with quite a giggle. He fascinated us all with his tales of being the head modeller on so many of the Star Wars sets. Hearing about his inventive creations was fascinating but I kept glancing down at my hand, to check we were on schedule. I’d written the afternoon’s sequence on my palm in blue Sharpie. It was all so simple then – no earpiece from Production, no video cue screen, no countdown clock. Just my hand and a Sharpie. Eventually, I waved goodbye to Lorne and went for the next intro. It was Carrie.

  She was bang on cue when she heard her name and the ovation that greeted it. She came on stage to face her loving fans, looking sweetly casual in a sleeveless linen shirt. I walked across to usher her to the little interview set in the centre. I warmly placed my hands on her shoulders and gave her a friendly peck on the cheek. But I was horrified as we pulled away from each other. There on her little, suntanned shoulder was a perfect print of my schedule, in reverse. My sweaty palm had given her a rather odd tattoo. She loved it.

  Her honesty and humanity overcame her much-discussed psychological issues, apparently inspiring countless others in the process. Her vulnerability and endless determination created one of the greatest screen icons, beloved by millions. Her abilities and talent surmounted her feelings of being, “more a writer than an actor”. Certainly her books showed her to be as thoughtful, incisive and witty in prose, as she was in person.

  It’s sad to think that I will never see her again, except on screen – where she will live forever.

  58 droids

  Well, I wasn’t overburdened with Threepio. He did not figure large in Rian’s script.

  After the prequels and The Force Awakens, I was used to being a side order; feeling like a beloved decoration that was
brought out once a year to dress the Christmas tree – familiar but with no real purpose. There, for nostalgia’s sake only. So why not? And I was flattered to be asked.

  Pierre Bohanna had been such a kind and generous mastermind in coordinating my suit’s rebuild that I was happy to get involved in his project. “Droid School”. Would I be willing to give a master-class to some of the cast? The Casino sequence was going to be huge, thronged with exotic characters and aliens. And there would be five waiter droids. The actors inside might have earned a living as waiters at some time, but it was doubtful they’d been droids before. Would I help them? Of course.

  It was fun. We met in a cluttered section of Wardrobe and cleared some space in front of a large mirror – Nathan, George, Lucas, Zsole, Juan and me. For The Force Awakens shoot my code name on set was “Skinny Guy”. Of course, for my own comfort, I had got back into shape for each production. The gaps between films were temptingly filled with bouts of overindulgence. But here were five actors who really were slim, and naturally fitter than me, being considerably younger and very enthusiastic. At least we had that in common. I gave some chat about isolation techniques; being aware of what bits of your body were doing at any point – or not doing. Just as important, was how to navigate onto their marks, with no peripheral vision to guide them. Triangulation – find a prop, a person, a thing and use it as a location device, although other people would have to be hitting their marks at the same time. Then we played at dressing up.

  They became elegant black knights. The edges of their dapper suits of armour were picked out in gold. Their illuminated wrists gave an extravagantly inventive effect to the cuffs – stunning. My planning notes had me thinking of them, not as mere waiters, but as head waiters, with their noses in the air. Now seeing their outfits for the first time, I was too late. Costume designer, Michael Kaplan, had already achieved the effect with a snooty upturn of their shiny black masks, a really neat personification of an aloof attitude. So all good – till we tried playing with some props.

  The trays were strangely heavy – nothing cheap about this production – the glassware, heavier. And as for the decanters... So I had a word with Props and we found plastic versions of most things. Carrying weighty, fragile loads in a droid outfit is asking for trouble. Carrying a tray on your fingertips is bad enough, but perilous when those tips are not your own. Eventually, we stuck Velcro patches on the gloves and underneath the tray. That took care of the accident statistics. Most of the time.

  I had been flattered to be their tutor. But Pierre went even further in asking, would I be the on-set Droid AD? A new experience for me. Of course, I said yes.

  The once cindered grittiness of the Crait mines had been swept away. Now Pinewood’s 007 Stage was filled with such elegant magnificence. Not only the cavernous opulence of the scenery, but also the huge gaming tables, the resplendent pageant of strange and wondrous creatures, wearing the most imaginative evening attire Michael had ever created. In each direction, my gaze was captured by some outrageously creative stroke. Surely a Best Costume Oscar here – certainly an inspiration to the high street fashion industry. I was thrilled to be there. Especially since I wasn’t actually in the scene. I wasn’t in costume. This time I was Crew – equally grateful that the real Crew seemed happy to accept me as a novice member of their own.

  Each droid waiter had two dressers. I was their AD. Amongst other responsibilities, making sure they portrayed the right degree of arrogance, helping to place them in shot, watching out for their comfort and safety. What a wonderful chance to pay back the care and attention I had received over the years. From Maxi and Brian and Don and Justin and, more recently, David and Jonathan and Sophie and Joe. So many patient kindnesses. Now it was my turn to care.

  It was exhausting. Looking after five hot and disorientated individuals was a physical and emotional workout. The 007 Stage is the biggest in Europe. With the camera at one end and the gang of five spread all over the vast set, it was a four-hundred-yard dash there and back, on each take. At least I was wearing jeans. The hard-working quintet was steaming up inside their elegant plastic outfits. Forget peripheral vision – they couldn’t see in front either. And, of course, I quickly forgot who was inside. Which was Nathan? Where was Lucas? The droids were identical. But since I was minding all of them, it made no difference to me or, I hope, to them. But my main moment of fear came from something else.

  Sound can be heavy on the budget if it’s added after the event, in post. Stuart Wilson was determined to record as much clean track as possible during each take. All the human characters had body mikes, and there was always Orin Beaton, gently hefting the long microphone boom above us. I had a go with it once, raising my arms above my head and pointing the mike, some twenty feet away. It was quite a workout, and I only did it for a moment. He was doing it on every take without ever getting the mike in frame.

  Poor Stuart would go crazy listening to Threepio’s squeaks and clanks, as plastic clashed and rubbed with plastic. If he thought it was bad on the outside, Stuart should have experienced what I was hearing. Every noise carried straight to my ear through the fabric of the suit. I lived in perpetual cacophony, a situation exacerbated if I was wearing my tiny earpiece. Essential for hearing the other actors, I was tuned-in to anyone whose mike channel was open – whether they were acting the scene or merely keeping up their own energy levels by loudly singing or gossiping at full tilt. Then there were the times that my hearing aid – inserted in the side of my head – would explode with brain-piercing white noise. The effect was regularly fiendish. Stuart said it might be a transmitter issue, said he was sorry, would have denied it was pay-back for my squeaking and ruining his recordings. We had got on joyously together, after I’d told him to stuff his suggestion that I mime a complicated exchange with Oscar, after we’d just rewritten it. I snapped that I had enough on my plate with the suit and so – no. Remembering it now, I think he was right. I won’t tell him though.

  But I did have to point out that if we turned off the tiny, tiny fans inside the masks of our waiter-droid team, they would steam up and die. A slight exaggeration but he got the point. In their search for perfect sound, his team laid carpet pieces wherever the floor wasn’t in shot. It cut down on the foot noise but health and safety became an issue. Nathan, or possibly George, was doing his thing when I saw his foot catch the edge of one of Stuart’s rugs. As the elegant droid shimmied forward, his foot went further underneath. He wasn’t aware inside his plastic suit. But I could see that he would shortly be enrolled in flooring material, resulting in a noisy crash to the ground thereby spoiling Stuart’s recording and risking severe damage to man and droid. Moments before I was about to do a lifeguard thing and leap to the rescue in shot, they cut the take. He was saved. I could finally unwrap him.

  But that wasn’t the only tense situation for me.

  For the opening shot, the camera hung below a bridge that stretched laterally across the elaborate gaming tables. It was supported on two wheeled columns, pushed by camera Grips. The crane raced forward. Crowd artists casually moved out of the way, as it shot past them. They had learned in rehearsal that moving out of the way saved them being smacked in the face by the speeding equipment. The elaborately choreographed move started as an elegant guest took a drink, before another guest swiped a glass flute of champagne off Zsole’s tray – right in front of the already hurrying lens. I steadied the tray as he held it in position then, at the last moment, left it in the Velcro-attached hands of my droid friend.

  INT. CANTO bight – CASINO

  ACTION!

  SMACK!

  CUT!

  They cleaned up the broken glass and wiped up the liquid, as the camera bridge returned to its start mark. Next take we used plastic. But my heart was pounding as we set off again, and again, and again.

  The movie industry can be an unfeeling mistress – so much shot, so much cut away. How sad that a scene I so hoped to adm
ire in the finished film, was edited so savagely. There was some speech about arms dealers but then only a few of the iconic dresses flashed by. Several extraordinary headpieces flourished briefly. The tiny croupier’s part was now even smaller. The eerily compelling two-headed girl was gone. And our diligent brigade of waiter droids – reduced to a mere hint of snoot.

  59 dread

  A Star Wars film without Threepio! It was against the lore.

  It seemed there was no place for even a hint of gold in this side story, featuring a beloved smuggler. I had taken part in every episode in the Saga but with Solo: A Star Wars Story, suddenly my trivial claim to fame was lost. Then, a new idea. I’d done it before. CZ-3, Lieutenant Faytonni – I could be an extra, crowd cameo, bit part player. The producers were thrilled at the idea.

  And here I was, being chauffeured through the outskirts of London to the more rural setting of the flourishing Pinewood Studios. And there was my trailer. It had a name on the door, not mine. I was used to the security title I had been gifted on the previous films, along with all the other cast. They had fake names like “Keith” or “Tall Guy”. As we now know, I was “Skinny Guy”. But this was a spin-off story and so a different name on the door – “Human Slave”.

  I had been called in for costume and makeup tests – all this for a slave, human or otherwise. But first I went on set to meet the two directors. Two sounded quite a novel idea but it must be working because they had almost finished principal photography – the actual filming part of a film. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were so excited that I was joining their shoot. I was thrilled, too. Hugely welcoming, they introduced me to everyone around. Alden Ehrenreich was playing the lead character and equally friendly with his charming smile. And here was Chewie, Tall Guy, Joonas Suotamo, clad in his usual yak-fur suit. So good to see him again after the fun we’d shared on the previous shoots. And then I became tongue-tied. I had never been star struck before. No offence to the various stars I had encountered over the years – but this was special. Thandie Newton shook my hand warmly. I could only mumble a besotted, garbled hello before I tore myself away and an AD led me back to my trailer.