Page 31 - Star Wars Insider #187

INTERVIEW: NICK GILLARD
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what he’d call himself—a storyteller,
not a director or a writer, necessarily.
For George, it’s about telling the story.
‘A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far
away.…’—straight away, you’re into it.
As a technician in the fi lm business,
that helps you believe you can do
anything you want. It’s very freeing.”
After completing work on Revenge
of the Sith—in which you can briefl y
spot the sword master himself as Jedi
Cin Drallig—Gillard made a decision
to focus on stunt work for television,
relishing the immediacy of the medium
over movies. “After Star Wars I did
some of the smallest TV, because I had
such a good time doing it. If I turn a
car over on a movie, I can plan it for a
month—if I do it on a TV show, they’ll
want it at 10.20 a.m. next Wednesday
morning and we’ll be done by 10.30
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a.m. I might ask if I can go and recce it,
and they can’t afford it, so you’ve got
to turn up and make it happen, which
just keeps you alive and hungry for it.
I promise you, at the moment I could
not be happier!”
Busier than ever after 40 years of
creating stunts for the biggest movies
and TV shows, Nick Gillard looks back
on the challenges of working on the
Star Wars saga with great fondness
and no little pride. “The movies mean
everything to me, because they opened
a door,” he says about the saga’s place
in his life and career. “Everywhere I go,
it will be the first thing I’m asked about.
I’ll sit on a train and hear somebody
talking about the Darth Maul fight,
or I’ll see a kid wearing a backpack
featuring a still from a fight I arranged.
It’s always there.”
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