Being Human star Sam Witwer -- perhaps better known to Star Wars fans as Starkiller from The Force Unleashed games and The Son and Maul from The Clone Wars -- participated in a Reddit "AMA" question-and-answer session this afternoon. He discussed everything from pickles ("green bananas that tastle [sic] different") to biting people he just met ("ALWAYS weird. Believe me."). Here are some of his comments about various aspects of the Star Wars franchise, from his work on TFU and TCW to his desire to appear in Episode VII.
On the person who helped him get his first Star Wars role
David Collins, my dear friend.. He works at Lucasfilm. He saw that their concept art for the apprentice looked just like me so he snuck my headshot into the huge pile.
Looked like the same guy so it earned me an audition.
David Collins was AWESOME as Han Solo in Smuggler's gambit. (link)
On the character of Starkiller
Starkiller is the photo negative of Luke Skywalker. That's always how we imagined him. He is what Luke could have been had Vader discovered him as a child.
It's Star Wars, but coming at it from the opposite end (link)
On whose idea it was to make Starkiller look like him
Lucasfilm.
The good news is the concept art they created as painted by Amy Beth Christenson already looked a good deal like me at the time, so that worked greatly in my favor.
All of the characters have the likeness and mocap of the actors. (link)
On the two TFU games -- and the possibility of a third
Force Unleashed 2 played better than 1. Only problem? There were corporate elements at the company (NOT George Lucas) who ... let's just say "severly limited" Lucasarts ability to make that second game... so it was short. ... I am happy to say those corporate elements have been removed from the company ... and you can thank George for that.
As for the 3rd, the first and second made a ton of money, so there's always that goin for us. ... Right now, I think the company has to focus on Ep 7 and supporting that. But we could certainly go back to it and the story is nothing short of awesome. (link)
On Playing Maul on TCW
I was intimidated by the challenge as far as bring maul back, but i believed in the story, I believed in Dave Filoni, and we worked hard to arc out the character. The episode we just aired, "Lawless"... We planned for that all the way back to Spider Maul... so if you watch all the Maul eps together, you will see a satisfying character evolution.. or so i hope, anyways. (link)
My thoughts were, "This is an awesome story. I hope I can do it justice cuz otherwise the fans will hate me forever."
Inspiration. Well, I started with the pattern laid out by Peter Seraphinowicz... That was the start point. Dave Filoni said he wanted Maul to start out like Gollum. I looked at the script and saw some Apocalypse Now similarities... Some real Heart of Darkness stuff.. So I asked, what if he's Gollum meets Colonel Kurtz. Filoni agreed.
Then we went on to build the character in the way that most made sense. That he wasn't just a hitman. That Sidious would have chosen a brilliant kid to train as his apprentice... and he would have picked up on a lot of his master's training.
So it's been fun to make him diplomatic at times, strategic and tactical, and to give him a messed up sense of humor.
And thankfully, George Lucas agrees with me. These stories all come directly from him, and the notes I go on are from him too. It's nice to have his support when building a Darth. (link)
What can I tell you about his fate? Funny, Dave and I just talked about that today.
hmm... boy... that was a good conversation.
I mean, I enjoyed it. I was very happy with what he said.
....
...I'm sorry, what was the question? You're breaking up. (link)
There are many more comments from Sam Witwer where those came from -- just check out his Reddit user page. The full Reddit AMA is available here.
Rebelscum Breast Cancer Awareness Charity Patch Posted By Philip on November 25, 2014: Thanks to everybody that ordered patches. I sent a check for $1,600.00 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation on Monday. While it's not as much as I hoped for, it's still very much appreciated. They will remain for sale in the store for anybody that still wishes to purchase them. Details after the jump.