He’s still out there on the book tour – and all this before the craziness of the promo tour for The Rise of Skywalker even begins – and Anthony Daniels sits down with Variety to discuss the book, Episode IX and his time as C-3PO.
Alec Guinness hated being defined by his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the franchise. Can you relate?
I have lived long enough to go through those shallows of despond. He died before he began to rise up out of them. He left this planet before he got there. I like to think he would have and would have eventually seen that, as I call him, an old man in a dressing gown, has meant so much to people. I think he would have liked that, because he was a kind man. When you look at the acting that he did, there was extraordinary diversity to his performances, and I think he felt that all that had been ignored, because it wasn’t whiz bang spaceships and that sort of thing. If there’s an afterlife, I hope he’s thinking of “Star Wars” a bit more benignly.
Then you feel more favorably about your involvement?
Yes, and why not? Put aside all the irritations, it’s hasn’t given me the career I ever would have expected. Who could have? But it has given me a career. I have done a ridiculous number of things, whereas a lot of actors have stunning careers where they do enviable roles. But a lot of actors muddle along a bit. And I would have been at the bottom edges of that. But this unexpected gift came along. Once I was involved, there was no letting go. In a way he and I, 3PO and I, were wedded. I’m not sure how he feels about that.
