You’d think a protocol droid would be more tactful: In a new interview with The Guardian, Anthony Daniels—the gaunt Englishman who has spent basically his entire career playing R2-D2’s codependent robot pal C-3PO in the Star Wars movies—compares Disney’s tight-lipped attitude about The Force Awakens to the Kremlin.
Apparently one of the over six million forms of communication in which Daniels is fluent is Twitter, where he recently got in trouble with his (presumably fur-hat-wearing) corporate overlords for saying too much, by which we mean anything at all: “I said that I’d met so-and-so. An actor who plays a … thing in the film. A character,” he explains. “Immediately I received a message from Disney: ‘Remove the tweet! You’re not allowed to say that!’ Honestly. It’s a kind of Kremlin attitude,” he says.
To be fair, Daniels was there when Star Wars was a movie for kids and not a global marketing event with billions of dollars in potential revenue, so he has a different perspective on the whole thing. “There was none of this paranoia because it was a daft little film and no one cared,” Daniels says of Star Wars’ original 1977 theatrical run. “[Now] the secrecy has been beyond ludicrous,” he says. “For heaven’s sake, it’s a movie. When I got the script, it was typed in black on paper of the deepest red so you couldn’t photocopy it. I got a hangover just reading it.”
Maybe he’s just annoyed that his bosses don’t trust him. Daniels is the only actor to appear in all seven Star Wars movies, and he’s already signed on for the eighth and ninth, so he’s not likely to commit career suicide by leaking details about the films before they’re released. “Look, I know perfectly well not to tell you now what I’m giving you for a Christmas present because it would spoil the surprise. And these films are all about opening the box on Christmas Day,” Daniels says. (As long as that box isn’t empty.)
Still, Daniels can’t seem to help himself: Explaining that Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams was “too respectful” to suggest any alterations to Daniels’ characterization of C-3PO, he says, “There was, however, some debate about a certain issue, whose outcome will become apparent in due course.” After all, he’s only an actor.
[h/t The Hollywood Reporter]