Page 29 - Star Wars Insider #187

INTERVIEW: NICK GILLARD

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climactic duel between Obi-Wan and
Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen)
in Revenge of the Sith, Gillard worked
with a wide range of actors across the
three movies, including Natalie Portman
(Padmé), Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine),
and Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu).
“You were dealing with big characters,
like Sam Jackson, the coolest man in
the universe,” Gillard smiles. “More
than anything else he loves old Japanese
samurai movies, but he didn’t have
a fi ght in Attack of the Clones. Mace
Windu’s duel with Jango Fett wasn’t
originally in the script. Sam sent me an
email when we were prepping, which
I think I’ve still got, that said, ‘If you
don’t talk George into me having a fi ght
on this movie, then I’ll strike you down
with great vengeance and fury and you
will know my name is Mace Windu!’ impact on the stunt team’s physical loved the fighting anyway and spent a

So we got him a fight. Sam loves all work? “None whatsoever,” Gillard lot of time on set watching us, worked
that stuff.” reveals. “Ours was a very correct dance. on Yoda —they did the rest.”
The Star Wars prequels’ push We knew where Yoda was going to be,
of computer-generated imagery in and where he was going to jump—we Grievous Bodily Harm

films led Gillard and his team to even had a little maquette of him that A sprightly Jedi Master with a single
work increasingly on fi ght sequences moved around—so my guy could do his lightsaber is one thing, but how much
involving digitally created characters, routine as Dooku, and he knew where more complex did things become when
such as Attack of the Clones’ memorable Yoda was at every point in that routine. one of the combatants was a droid
showdown between Count Dooku and Then John Knoll and Rob Coleman Separatist with four arms, wielding no
Jedi Master Yoda. Did that have an from Industrial Light & Magic, who less than four lightsabers?

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