Page 55 - Star Wars Insider #195

GOING GREEN

03

with explosives. We’ll blow the 01 Paul Blake’s Having completed his scenes,
first scene on “We all thought
dummy up, take the costume Blake left the studio and continued
set as Greedo
off the dummy, and put it back ended up on his career, oblivious to the huge that would be the
on Paul so he can do the shot the cutting sensation that Star Wars would
room floor.
where he dies. So that’s exactly become. “I never thought anything last we’d see of
what we did, but of course they 02 Blake is more about it,” he admits. “As soon
nearly blew up half the set!” helped into as we’d finished, we couldn’t wait any of it. No one had

his Greedo
After the set was gloves and to leave and get on to the next job, any expectations.”
reconstructed, a second take mask for his because we all thought that would
first scene.
was filmed—as quickly as be the last we’d see of any of it. No Paul Blake

possible, as the crew were eager 03 Rehearsing one had any expectations.”

to finish for the day. “Eventually the infamous However, Greedo’s story was
face-off
we redid the shot, and they far from over, as Lucas eventually reshoots, a local U.S. actor was
between
immediately ripped the costume Greedo decided to reshoot some of the sought to don the costume for the
off the dummy, brushed it (Blake) and Rodian’s close ups later at Industrial additional shots at ILM’s studio,
Han Solo
with incense—which stank to (Harrison Light & Magic in California. “My and American actor Maria De
high heaven—and pumped it Ford) mask wasn’t animatronic,” explains Aragon was cast.
around the set to make it look Blake. “It was solid, very rigid, and De Aragon made her name
like smoke,” Blake remembers. the ears didn’t rotate or anything appearing in a string of action-
“Then they poured a bit of acid like that. They didn’t shoot any packed B-movies that saw her play
on the back of the costume and close-ups of it with me because it everything from a kick-ass femme
put me back into it while it was wouldn’t move, so I was mostly in fatale saving the Earth from alien
still smoking with all this stuff. the long shots.” invaders in The Cremators (1972)
Because the costume was still on fi re to the kung-fu heroine of cult
I just slumped forward and died. I Greedo Take Two movie Wonder Women (1973).
couldn’t wait to get out of it!” With Blake unavailable for the However, when she accepted a

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