When you appeared in Return of the Jedi did you have any idea that all these years later you’d come back to revisit your character?
Ian McDiarmid: “No. It was extraordinary. I came to play the man who I first played. I had a very brief meeting with George [Lucas]. No lunch. They were very busy. I got back and there was a phone call from my agent who said, ‘It’s great. You got the part.’ I had to say, ‘What part?’ They said, ‘Well, the Emperor of the universe.’ ‘Well, the only way is down after this.’ And I embraced it wholeheartedly, and I’ve been embracing it wholeheartedly ever since. But did I imagine that I’d be sitting here talking to some 25-odd years later? No. Certainly not. But it has been a great journey.”
Did you imagine that your character would be the one, out of all the characters in all six films, that really had the greatest arc of development?
McDiarmid: “No again to that. When George asked me to be in the prequels, it was the same kind of meeting. It was very short and to the point. It was nice to see him after a long time. We met in a hotel room and he said, ‘I hope that you’d like to drink.’ I said, ‘I’ll take the sparkling mineral water.’ He said, ‘By the way, do you know anyone who would like to play an Emperor?’ I said, ‘Funny you should say that.’ He said, ‘Great. You can give the water back.’ And that was that, once again. But he did let me into a few secrets. Not many. That’s his way. I’m all for that. That’s the mark of a great storyteller, never giving away secrets in advance. But he did say that the character would be on the sidelines in movies one and two, and move into the middle with number three. I didn’t realize that he would move in with such a bang. It only slowly dawned on me that if Vader was really the worst creature, the most evil, the darkest, the blackest villain in movie history, I was worse than him. I’m still slightly coming to terms with that, actually. But I think that my relationship with Satan is closer than I ever imagined it to be as a character.”
Were you chomping at the bit, after playing this character in disguise in two movies, to play the really evil part of this character?
McDiarmid: “Yes, I was. And again, I didn’t know how evil he was going to be. I knew that he was going to be pretty evil, not sure how much until I got the script. I also didn’t know that he would have fighting skills, which I had to come up with pretty quickly. I imagined that his power was in his fingers and in his head. Little did I know that he was the fastest light saber in the universe. But now I know, and now he is.”
When did you first “find” the character of the Emperor?
McDiarmid: “When I saw the face is the short answer–when I saw that mask all those years ago. The original intention I think that was my voice–well, it might even have been Clive Revill because he had already voiced the movie [NOTE: Revill provided the voice of the Emperor in the original 1980 theatrical version of The Empire Strikes Back] and consistency is clearly very important when you’re making a film. Richard Marquand, the director, said to me, ‘If you can get your voice close to Clive’s, George may let you keep it.’ I had no idea that it might be taken away from me at that stage, and I had the temerity to think, ‘Well, Clive of course didn’t see the face that I’m looking at.’ I had some time to get to know this character, and I thought, ‘Well, he comes from the bowels of the earth. He looks like an old toad.’ And before you knew it I was making the voice. It just came out. And George, as usual, heard it and within about ten seconds liked it, fortunately. And I’ve been stuck with it happily ever since.”
How difficult was it to transition from the sublimely subtle evil in the first part of the Episode III to the switch to the unfiltered Dark Side that occurs in the middle of the movie?
McDiarmid: “Well, it’s very interesting–and I’ve said this a few times–but there was a note that George gave. Not really as a note–we were just talking and he said this quite casually. He said, ‘You should think of your eyes, Ian’s eyes, as his.’ In other words, my face was his mask, which is an extremely interesting thing to say to an actor. I knew that in Episode III, as we all did really, that this face would have to burst through my own mask. So in a sense, I couldn’t wait, and I also knew that they’d mix it brilliantly from one face to another, and it would be my sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde moment, Dorian Gray–a subversive life and then to evil. So I was really looking forward to it. When we were filming it George got closer and closer and closer with that camera. He was practically up my nose for that final shot. So I knew that was the moment that I had to give my very best.”
Did you base this character on anyone in politics or religion?
McDiarmid: “Well, you know, he was a politician and he turned out to be an evil monster. That’s not too difficult a story to follow, either in Star Wars or if you happen to be looking at the front of any newspaper in practically any country. If you come from England and if you come from the United States, you’re not short of candidates there. What I think and hope, frankly–and this is me talking now–that when people do watch this film as you now can chronologically that they’ll see a lot of things that they hadn’t seen before. They’ll not just see a great storyteller in operation in George. We all know that. But we’ll see that there are many other layers that emerge, and the one that interests me– perhaps not unnaturally because I played the character–is the chart of the rise of evil, fascism if you like. And it’s very carefully drawn and not just through my character, but through organizations like the trade federations. I bet that some of you in this room have not found the Trade Federations fascinating. This might change when you watch the films in sequence because you’ll see my character quietly, steadily, patiently (which is the key word) there all the time. So not only is George a great storyteller and filmmaker, but he’s a great analyst of the politics of power.”
From all four of the Star Wars films you’ve appeared in, what was the most difficult thing you faced?
McDiarmid: “The most difficult, certainly, for me were the all action sequences. The sequence fighting Sam [Jackson] was really hard. But you’ll see from the DVD that we had our problems on that day. They weren’t big ones. I mean, they were happily surmounted, but I had learned some stuff and I had worked with Nick and when George saw it on the set it wasn’t what he needed. And interestingly enough what he needed, I would say, was less of me. But he wanted not just my facial expressions–and he’s not terribly interested in [digitally] replacing faces unless it’s absolutely necessary–he wanted my energy. So we had to make a few changes just like that to someone who would be fighting at that rate. That was a quick learning process. It was good and exciting, but it was difficult. Fighting Frank [Oz], fighting Yoda was a joy. I then got to experience the full beauty of CGI. In other words, actors in battle with invisible people. That was great fun, and the greatest fun of all is the big action sequence which you probably wouldn’t think of as such: That was the scene in the opera. Hayden [Christensen] and I are sitting together and just talking as the opera was playing. But interestingly enough and people have told me this–I’m very pleased to hear it too–it’s a sort of action in a way of any sequence involving spaceships or light saber fights because it’s thought in action. It is a kind of saber battle. The scene was a joy to do, because I got to work with Hayden and we were with each other every second of the day in our eyes, which is how actors should work.”
Can you describe your mindset as an actor when playing a character you’ve already played a generation later in his life?
McDiarmid: “Confused. It’s a strange thing–and it will be, I think, when I watch the DVDs in sequence–to have be chosen in your thirties to play someone who’s 130, and then to find when you’re are in early fifties that you were going to play the same character as your then-age, your early fifties. In fact I don’t think that I’ve come out of the shock, but the interesting thing about that is that I think it’s an absolutely unique challenge for an actor. I can’t think of anyone else that has been asked to do that or been given the opportunity to do it. I’m really grateful for that.”
Will you be revisiting the character once more in the planned live action series?
McDiarmid: “Well, I think that no one really knows the details of the television series. I don’t think that people are being particularly coy. I just don’t think that a lot of things have been decided yet, but I know that George’s intention is to follow one of the characters who’s been less highlighted up to now, but someone who would be very popular with audiences. Sure, if it’s the period between the movies the Emperor will have to be referred to, but if you’ll remember he was referred to often without actually appearing in the first Star Wars movie, and Peter Cushing was a very respected representative. So I suspect that there might be a very good number of respected representatives. But I always answer my phone.”
How do children react when they see you in person now?
McDiarmid: “They are a little tentative, which is a relief, frankly. They tend to approach me with negative questions like, ‘You’re not him are you?’ Then I can truthfully say, ‘No.’ That’s being a little dishonest, but not wholly. And by the time that they’ve phrased their next question I’ve disappeared around the corner. When I came over here just as the film was opening to see it for the first time in this very room–a happy memory–I was at the airport getting my bag and a little boy came up to me and said, ‘Are you in Star Wars?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He then went back to his mother, who apologized to me. Then he came back again when I was on the carousel and said, ‘Are you a liar?’ Now that, if you analyze it, is a very interesting question, and the answer is ‘Yes and no.’ The character is absolutely a liar from the moment that he was conceived. Me, I hope not. But on the other hand, no one could be in Star Wars standing next to the carousel, and also it’s sort of my job to make you believe things about him that aren’t true about me. So that’s almost the best question that I’ve had so far, and it was coming from a guy who couldn’t have been more than eight.”
