THE END OF THE LINE
After 42 years, Anthony Daniels says C-3PO’S run has finally come to a grand conclusion
Of the many scene-stealing moments Anthony Daniels has given us over 10 Star Wars films, one of the best might be when his fussy droid C-3PO holds court in an Ewok village on the forest moon of Endor in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
Despite telling his fireside audience that he is not much of a storyteller, C-3PO holds the Ewoks’ rapt attention as he regales them about the Rebel Alliance’s battles with the Empire, complete with elaborate sound effects.
C-3PO, usually jittery and fretful, tells the tale with enthusiasm, perhaps emboldened because the Ewoks had earlier decided he is a god. But the actor behind the gold mask was feeling anything but godlike on that day.
“I had the worst cold ever,” says Daniels, doing interviews for what he says will be his final Star Wars film — J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker.
That awkward gold suit, never the most comfortable to act in, was particularly prison-like for a stuffed-up, runny-nosed Daniels.
“I was utterly miserable in that scene,” says Daniels. “I was fighting a head cold. But it does work.”
It’s one of the behind-the-scenes stories Daniels, 73, recounts in his new memoir, I Am C-3PO, that suggests all was not as it seemed under the gold chrome. Daniels has played C-3PO since the 1977 George Lucas original, Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.
He played the character, opposite his resourceful sidekick R2-D2, for that first trilogy, ending with The Return of the Jedi. They also appeared in the prequel trilogy in the late 1990s and early aughts, ending with 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Daniels will have played the character again all through the saga’s final trilogy as well.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He was also in the 2016 stand-alone spinoff Rogue One. He played C-3PO on the Donny and Marie Show and the Muppets in the late 1970s. There was a spinoff animated series called Droids in the 1980s that has him voicing the character. He was even in that notoriously creepy 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.
But the Rise of Skywalker is being described as the end of the road for these characters. Daniels is the only actor to have appeared in this many Star Wars films and he has outlived a number of the original cast. Carrie Fisher, who appears in the Rise of Skywalker as Princess Leia thanks to leftover footage from previous Star Wars films, died in 2016. Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2, also died that year. Peter Mayhew, who played towering Wookie Chewbacca, died earlier this year. Alec Guinness, who played Obi-wan Kenobi, died in 2000.
“As I was leaving the set on the last day of my shooting in the movie, at that moment I thought ‘This is the third time I’ve said goodbye,’” Daniels says. “I did feel a bit emotional, obviously. Some of the films have been fun, but with this one there was such a warmth on the set. Everybody is a Star Wars fan. The young actors are all thrilled to be in a Star Wars film and gave it everything.”
In his memoir, Daniels reveals that he was not always thrilled with his status in the Star Wars universe. He first caught the attention of Lucas in 1975, who was interested in the classically trained actor’s mime skills. At the time, Daniels was starring in a National Theatre of Great Britain production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at the Young Vic and had little to no interest in sci-fi or fantasy roles.
When Star Wars-mania took over the world, Daniels felt left out compared to co-stars Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill. Apparently the publicity team was happy to have the public believe C-3PO and R2-D2 were actual droids and not actors playing droids. In the book, he also writes about the pain and discomfort the suit caused him during that first film.
“I’ve written about things that people wouldn’t know about my feelings that I kept hidden for quite some time,” he says. “It feels OK at this point to say ‘At the time you were having a great experience, I wasn’t. I was pretty unhappy.’
“But I have survived long enough to go through that and carry on and go on. It occurs to me as I speak, that maybe why I feel so good about this is that I went through bits that weren’t so good. If it had all been brilliant, it would have been flat line. My book really dies to talk about the reality of an actor in a really weird situation.”
Daniels says he has not always been satisfied with how his character has been used in the Star Wars universe, including C-3PO’S greatly diminished role in 2016’s The Last Jedi. While he was sworn to secrecy about the closing of the Skywalker saga in the new film, he did say that his character will finally have a satisfying arc to end on.
“I remember wanting that a few years ago and not getting it,” he says. “I think Chris Terrio, the writer, and J.J. Abrams have given a new view on things. It feels great.”