Stephen Merchant, director of the hit film Fighting With My Family, has revealed that he has a desire to make another biopic, this time focusing on a local – local to him, anyway – Bristolian legend, the one and only Dave Prowse.
Prowse, who of course played Darth Vader in the original trilogy, would be the focus of the film, but Merchant would like to add a twist and appearing on The Russell Howard Hour he explained just what that twist is.
“He was this bodybuilder who was the body inside the Darth Vader suit, and he’s from our neck of the woods, he’s from Bristol.
And the legend goes that he was in the outfit and he would go on set, and he would do all of the Darth Vader lines, and he’d learnt all the lines and he speaks like us. So he’s in there going ‘I’m your father Luke, me old babber!’
And he gets to the premiere, and that’s the first time he discovers it wasn’t his voice and that they’ve overdubbed it with the amazing James Earl Jones.”
And here’s the twist.
“I just think it would be amazing to make a movie with The Rock as Dave Prowse, but I’m doing his voice, and I’m overdubbing The Rock all the way through.
But we don’t tell The Rock until the premiere.”