There are a thousand people and a thousand decisions a day required to make a film work, and when that film is Star Wars, not only did it require good judgement, serendipity and skill but solid, dependable people like Les Dilley, the Art Director who helped George Lucas find and polish the gem that is A New Hope. Dilley was given the British Academy Cymru Awards Outstanding Contribution Award, and The Maker had this to say.
“Les Dilley was an all round great guy and very easy to work with and he was my main contact with the art department. He was always on top of things, I would say “we need to move that wall” and he would say “I’m on it” and that’s the kind of people you like working for you. They’re creative, they’re thoughtful and they are always willing to do their job not matter how impossible it is and how crazy I act sometimes. I had a tendency to under do the sets so the Death Star control room, I told those guys I could do it with one side of the set and then when I got there in the morning I realised I couldn’t do it on one side of the set and need three sides of the set. So, a lot of that set was built while we were shooting that morning, they got it done by lunchtime, the paint was still drying and Les was a big part of that. You know it was one of those impossible tasks and he just pulled it off. He always had a good sense of humour about it. Congratulations, Les. You’re a great guy, you were a great help on the movies and if anybody deserves this award, you do.”
Dilley, who worked on A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Alien amongst many others, was thanked by the great and the good of Hollywood including James Cameron and John Landis.
