Alan Tudyk Talks Filming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Hundreds of people jam-packed into a tiny room to hear Alan Tudyk’s Q&A session at the recent Fan Expo Canada. Tudyk has a starring role in the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, where he plays a side-kick droid named K-2SO. Read on for more!
Alan Tudyk, the actor best know for his role as Hoban “Wash” Washburne in Joss Whedon’s short-live Fox sci-fi TV series ‘Firefly‘ was at the Fan Expo in Canada recently, where he shared a few words on his experience playing a very tall droid named K-2SO.
Tudyk, didn’t have much to say about the new ‘Rogue One’ film, however, he did offer some thoughts about filming his character using motion capture and what it’s like to be a part of the Star Wars universe.
He kicked off the Q&A talking about about his role as K-2SO, and how his previous work portraying another film character in the Will Smith film “I Robot” may have helped with his performance in ‘Rogue One’.
“I had done Sonny in I, Robot, but I don’t even know if that’s why they thought of me, ‘Get that robot actor!’” Tudyk joked. “What’s great about Star Wars is that droids have such an amazing history. They’re such characters, not that Sonny wasn’t a character, but it was a Will Smith movie, and K-2SO is another in a line of great, great droids and I was very excited to play him”
In the film, Tudyk brings his droid to life by wearing stilts designed by Industrial Light & Magic along with a motion capture suit. Tudyk went on to talk about why he thought it was impossible to have a person inside the K-2SO costume versus the use of the CG Mo-Cap.
“He’s 7’1″ and his arms are really spindle-y, there was no way to do that as a suit”.
The 6′ tall Tudyk spent most of the ‘Rogue One’ shoot on stilts to give the droid his height. He noted that it would be difficult wearing the stilts that made him over 7′ tall while filming scenes near the edge of a cliff. He said one mistake could be a game changer, so he didn’t have them on then.
“I was by cliff once and you can’t wear stilts there, because you’ll die if you make one wrong step,” Tudyk recalled. “So they had this backpack, which ended up being known as the backpack of shame…it had this head that was up where his head should be.”
Apparently, the back-pack was involved in a hilarious interaction with the actor who plays Cassian Andor, Diego Luna. Luna joins Jyn Erso and K-2 on a journey to the holy lands of Jedha in the film.
“The first time I wore it he goes, ‘Alan, it is terrible what has happened. Everyone respected you just a moment ago, now they just feel sorry for you. Could you please take that ridiculous backpack off, it is upsetting the entire crew.'”
With aliens playing and important a part of the uprising against the Empire, Neal Scanlan’s creature department was able to design some bold new creatures for the film. Tudyk spoke briefly about how important the departments involvement was to ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
“You see the most amazing make-up and creature creations,’ Tudyk told the audience. “You’re like this is the most amazing alien I’ve ever seen and then they just walk behind you casually in the scene. It’s like a walking action figure!”
He closed out the evening by mentioning how important the role of droids are to Star Wars films. Droids have proved to be integral part to some of the galaxy’s most important events.
“Droids have such an amazing history in their movies and their real characters.” He later added, “K2SO is another in the line of great, great droids”.
Source: StarWarsUnderworld and Nerdbastards.com
high hopes for K-2SO!
He is unlikely to remain intact until the credits roll, though. Even the survival of Jyn Erso herself is in grave doubt, I should say.
Maybe only three characters survive?
Everybody dies. Vader will see to it.
Hell…. I bet Krennic does too…. Perhaps by Vader’s hands?
Yeah. Dr. Vader is likely to diagnose an acute breathing problem caused by underwhelming performance.
This. It ties up this story and informs why money Mothra is so sad when she talks about the spies that died to retrieve the plans.
Really? You mean when Mon Mothma is specifically referring to the Bothans who died stealing the plans for the SECOND DEATH STAR? Sheesh. How do people keep missing this?
lol That again.
Thank you, thank you; I’ll be here all night. Try the prime rib.
What took you so long? Been 25 days. lol
Wrong. Death. Star.
I think he did it on purpose…lol
mon mothra? Does Godzilla show up, too haha?
And that was the second death star.
Yes. only three survive. Vader, Mothma, and the Gonk Droid.
No…I meant for the protagonists…
Kathy Kennedy calling her Joan of Arc told me that.
He’ll always be known as the pirate from Dodgeball to me.
No, Wash from Firefly all the way
Yeah, there is only one answer here.
He played a great bumbling Hillbilly in Dale and Tucker vs Evil, he was also good as the horse vet / doctor in the 3:10 to Yuma remake.
Loved Tucker and Dale vs Evil!
Don’t forget Wat from A Knight’s Tale. “I will fong you!”
I don’t look up actor history so much, so it was interesting to learn he was also the robot in I, robot! Pretty fancy.
Spoiler alert: He takes a spear to the chest.