With a career that has encompassed a number of Star Wars projects including Rogue One, Andor, The Acolyte and Solo, as well as the galaxy’s number one film right now Project Hail Mary, Tim Berry is a man with a lot of knowledge of the animatronic and creature game – and a heck of a story to tell – and here he chats with the good folks over at Wookieepedia about his time amongst the stars.
Wookieepedia: Can you describe how you got involved with the Star Wars franchise and what your role(s) have been over the years?
Tim Berry: I’d known Gustav (Hoegen) who was running the mech shop for Star Wars for a few years but during episode 7 I didn’t feel confident enough to try and get on board and it wasn’t until near the end of that production I plucked up the courage to contact him. They had just finished 7 and were in early days of prepping for Rogue One and fortunately I was offered what I guess you could call a trial period. I was given two weeks to build a stand for a display of one of the previously made creatures and although I did go over by a couple of days they must have liked it and I was offered a job on Rogue One. I was initially hired to work in the model department as kind of a crossover with the animatronics department and I started with a title as a Modeller. As I moved over to Episode 8 I was offered a chance to join the animatronics department and became a Junior Animatronics designer and then upgraded to Animatronic designer for Solo, I then stayed as an Animatronic Designer for Episode 9 and Andor season 1. For The Acolyte and Andor season 2, I became a Senior Animatronic Designer and have been ever since.
We were lucky enough to interview Tim a number of years ago alongside his colleague Lee Towersey at New Forest Comic Con, a conversation you can watch below.
