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The Inspiration for Boss Nass Posted By Joshua on April 16, 2002
Maria found a funny note about Episode I on the Czech Star Wars Universe. Here's a clip of the translation:
Thus he confirmed with an absolute certainty his participation in George Lucas's film Star Wars: Episode I from 1999. Zeman was the base model for the charismatic leader of the Gungans, Boss Nass. Even though Nass is a completely computer-generated character in the movie, during the production Zeman provided active reference to the actors and in postproduction also to the animators, so in the final version his features in Nass's character are well recognizable, when looking closely. "It was really a joy to work with him. Weren't it for him, Boss Nass would never look so believable," the visual effects supervisor Scott Squires appreciated the Czech Prime Minister's performance. "He's really a big comedian."
Surprisingly, it wasn't the casting director Robin Gurland who discovered Zeman for the movie, but the producer Rick McCallum, while he was visiting Prague's pubs during the shooting of one of the Young Indiana Jones episodes. He quickly became friends with Zeman, and later he recommended him for the role of Boss Nass to George Lucas. Lucas was impressed by Zeman's abilities, and the Prime Minister got the role without any difficulties.
It's generally known that in the first versions of the script the Gungans spoke in natural and fluent English without an accent. Only after McCallum met Zeman, Boss Nass's character got the distinctive accent. Lucas was so enthused by Zeman's English that he decided to give the bizarre accent and the articulation as a characteristic feature not only to Boss Nass, but to all Gungans. However, Zeman's voice was never included in the movie, because the Prime Minister often included expressively colored Czech words, which were not in the script, into his lines. Boss Nass's lines were later, with all respect to Zeman's original performance and his unique voice specifics, dubbed by a voice actor Brian Blessed.
Milos Zeman was on his own request not included in the end credits of Episode I, because like James Earl Jones, who did the voice of Darth Vader in the original trilogy of Star Wars, he didn't find his work on the film contributing enough. "I wanted to avoid some people finding my involvement in this movie like a popularization expansion," Zeman commented it with a smile. "Politicians should not appear in the movies, because then the TV could not be watched," he added after a short pause.
Check out the link above for the rest of the parody.