Ben Schwartz still gets money for his voice work on Star Wars
Ben Schwartz still gets money from his voice consultancy work on BB-8 in 'Star Wars'.
Ben Schwartz still receives pay for his voice consultancy work on 'Star Wars'.
The 'Parks and Recreation' star insists he did the “least amount of work” helping to create the voice of droid BB-8 in 2015's 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' with Bill Hader.
The voice was created by director J.J. Abrams using their voices manipulated through a talkbox attached to an iPad running a sound effects app.
Speaking on ‘David Tennant Does A Podcast with…’, he told the ‘Doctor Who’ star: “I helped originate the voice, so every now and then I’ll get a cheque from Star Wars.
“At the beginning it was me. Me and JJ (Abrams) would write lines for BB-8 and then we would give them to Lucas Films or ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) and then they would turn them into beeps and boops.”
BB-8 appears in the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy as well as the animated series ‘Star Wars Resistance’.
Meanwhile, Hader previously admitted he refuses to sign autographs and recalled turning down a kid’s request to sign his BB-8 merchandise.
Speaking on the 'Happy Sad Confused' podcast in 2023, he said: "Autograph people don't like me. I won't sign things. I used to sign stuff, and then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB-8 thing and it was three in the morning.
"I was leaving the 'Inside Out' premiere and then we went to an after-party thing and it was super late and this guy kept his kid up all night.
"(He was like), 'Go over there so he'll sign it so I can sell it online.'
"And I was like 'That's f***** up!'
"And so now, I just kind of blanket, like, I'm not signing any of this s***!'"
The 'Barry' star added that while it is "very sweet" that director Abrams attributed the BB-8 character to him, he still cannot take credit for the part.
He said: "I came in and did like voice stuff for it that didn’t work. Then, he brought me in later and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this.’ It was like a... talk box thing and then I did that.
"And the reason he hasn’t had me come back is because anybody can do that... it’s like a machine that you can operate."
