George Lucas Considered Casting a Very Different Actor as Darth Vader

The big picture

• The casting of Darth Vader's voice was pivotal: George Lucas chose James Earl Jones over Orson Welles for the iconic voice of Darth Vader.
• Orson Welles returned to Hollywood in the 1970s for passion projects, while James Earl Jones became synonymous with Darth Vader.
• Jones' voice masked behind Darth Vader's iconic helmet gave the character a depth and power that resonates in film history.

During the forty-six years since the first War of the galaxies The premiere of the film, several actors have played Darth Vader. Like the formidable Sith Lord, Vader's role is an amalgam of various parts and players. David Prowse she wore the suit in the original trilogy, though Bob Anderson provided sword fighting and Sebastian Shaw he lent his face to the unmasking scene. then, Hayden Christensen he put on his costume Revenge of the Sith i Obi-Wan Kenobi, before both Spencer Wilding i Daniel Naprous he prepared it Rogue One. The actor best associated with the role, however, is James Earl Jones, who never played the role on set, but provided Vader's iconic voice in nearly all of his appearances on the big and small screen. Before Jones was cast for the voiceover, however, the director George Lucas Actually considered a different actor for Vader's mouth, a much more recognizable actor than Jones in 1977, who would have brought an element of old Hollywood prestige to the galaxy far, far away. Orson Welles.

How did George Lucas play the role of Darth Vader?

In the late 70s, while filming A New Hope in London, David Prowse recited all of Darth Vader's lines from behind the mask. Because the mask muted Vader's speech, however, all of the villain's dialogue had to be dubbed in post-production. Prowse assumed that he would be the one to dub his own voice, but the crew returned to Hollywood after filming, and it was too expensive to bring the English actor to work. Also, Prowse had a thick Bristol accent that seemed a little out of character for the role.

George Lucas began looking for someone to bring Darth Vader's voice to life. I wanted a deep, distinguished voice, a voice worthy of a cybernetic archivist that exuded darkness, newness, and mystery. Two actors came to mind. One of them was James Earl Jones, a relative unknown whose biggest role to date was Lt. Lothar Zogg in Dr. Strangelove. The other, however, was one of the most celebrated men in cinema, who had just returned to the United States after a long hiatus from Hollywood filmmaking.

What was Orson Welles doing before Star Wars?

Orson Welles first arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1930s. Only in his twenties, Welles had already made a national name for himself in both theater and radio, causing a nationwide frenzy in through his misunderstanding. war of the worlds issue His talent for storytelling was so great that RKO Radio Pictures gave him unprecedented creative control over his first film, which ended up being nothing less than Citizen Kane.

Revered by seemingly every filmmaker, critic, cinephile and academic since its release in 1941, Citizen Kane its impact on craft and industry cannot be overstated. After KaneOrson Welles continued to work in both film and radio, directing and starring in several feature films, including the outsider, The Lady of Shanghai, Macbethi The third man (directed by Carol Reed). He also did occasional work on television and returned to the stage a few times, and while many of his projects were successful, none of them came close to the monumental achievement of Citizen Kane. After troubled production and studio interference in the 1958s touch of evil, Welles turned down Hollywood and moved to Europe. He didn't return to the States for more than a decade, just as a young George Lucas was entering the film scene.

Why did Orson Welles return to Hollywood?

According to the 2018 Netflix documentary, They'll love me when I'm dead, Orson Welles returned to the US in part because of the Hollywood Renaissance of the 1970s. With the studies broken, he had the freedom to follow his passion projects, mainly, The other side of the winda daring film-within-a-film experiment that the director intended to self-finance and produce.

Because The other side of the wind came mostly out of Welles' own pocket, he spent much of the 1970s taking whatever role offered him a paycheck. He appeared on several talk shows, hosted documentaries and television series, starred in commercials and even made a cameo in The Muppets Movie. Most of his work, however, required only his voice, which had aged finely from his radio beginnings, becoming something both paternal and formidable. In addition to providing voiceovers for several shows, Welles notably lent his baritone strings to the villainous role of Unicron in Transformers: The Movie. Obviously, he wasn't above voicing a sci-fi antagonist in a comic book style film.

Why did George Lucas choose James Earl Jones over Orson Welles?

According to James Earl Jones himself in the book The making of Star Wars, George Lucas personally contacted Welles to voice Darth Vader. While it's unknown if Welles reciprocated the interest, Lucas' eventual comments suggest there was a distinct possibility the aging director would have taken the role. In fact, Lucas may have even rejected Welles because he preferred Jones' voice. In 2015, when Jones was honored at the American Theater Wing Gala, Lucas recalled his decision as initially difficult, but ultimately easy. “I knew the voice had to be very, very special,” Lucas said in his speech: “It was really a choice between Orson Welles and James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones won hands down.”

Jones told the American Film Institute that Lucas was looking for a voice that felt “darker” and so he “hired a guy who was born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan and stutters.” Although the stutter is not evident in the performance, the mix of slow Southern bass and Midwestern articulation could be the secret to Vader's iconic voice. Unlike Welles, who always retained a touch of old-time radio theater in his vocal chords, Jones spoke with a clear, even stoic poise, perfect for the Sith Lord.

At the same time, Jones also claims that he was only paid $7,000 for the role, which he thought was “good money” at the time. One can reasonably expect that Welles, even at this financially precarious point in his career, would have asked for much more. Because War of the galaxies was only Lucas' third feature and had a modest budget of $11 million, Welles may have been out of the film's price range.

Orson Welles' legacy versus Darth Vader's longevity

All arguments aside, most would agree that Lucas made the right decision, as Jones' voice has become inseparable from Darth Vader. Although his performance was initially uncredited A New Hope, Jones has been voicing Vader for nearly half a century and only announced his retirement from the role a year ago. Welles, on the other hand, died in 1985. His last appearance in a film was Someone To Lovepublished posthumously in 1987. Meanwhile, The other side of the wind it remained unfinished until Netflix acquired it, completed it, and released it in 2018. Had Welles been the original voice of Darth Vader, he would never have been able to give the role the same longevity as Jones. He would only live to play the role in the original trilogy, and maybe from 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

Even so, the concept of Orson Welles being involved War of the galaxies—especially Darth Vader's voice—leaves a lot to love in the movie lover's imagination. It would be a gem to hear Welles' dialogue with Vader Alec Guinness'Obi-Wan on the Death Star. There's also something poetic about the man behind it The war of the worlds ushering in a new era of science fiction towards the end of his life, and at that very point, marking his career with a film that could finally rival Citizen Kane in terms of its influence on the history of cinema.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is currently available to stream on Disney+ in the US

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