Visually, casting David Prowse made excellent sense. The person was a 6-foot-6-inch bodybuilder and weightlifter, so he had the physique required for an intimidating Darth Vader in his masks, cape, and physique armor. He was picture-perfect and acted the half memorably, setting a excessive bar for Hayden Christensen, who needed to placed on weight to take over the function on “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” However the voice, effectively, it simply would not vibe. Thank goodness George Lucas and firm had been savvy sufficient to couple Prowse’s determine with James Earl Jones’ classically skilled voice.
Within the behind-the-scenes footage, one interviewee factors out, “It was hilarious and terrifying on the identical time as a result of we did not know what Darth feels like. That was the primary time we heard him. We had been like, ‘Is that it? Is he going to be some Scottish man, or what is that this?”
After all, that wasn’t it. Throughout later phases of the manufacturing course of, Prowse’s voice was changed by that of Jones, who defined the story in the identical BTS footage, saying, “George had employed David Prowse, however he mentioned he wished a so-called ‘darker voice,’ and never by way of ethnic however by way of timbre.” Jones elaborates that there was a rumor Lucas had thought-about Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane,” “Contact of Evil”) however that he in all probability thought the voice can be too recognizable. “So what he finally ends up,” he continues, “is choosing a voice that was born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, and was a stuttered â and that occurred to be my voice.”