James Earl Jones was paid only $7K to voice Darth Vader in ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’
James Earl Jones at the 70th Annual Tony Awards in New York, and Darth Vader in “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.”
James Earl Jones died on Monday at home in Dutchess County, New York, his representatives confirmed.
The star leaves behind an incredible cinematic legacy, with roles including Mufasa in “The Lion King,” Thulsa Doom in “Conan the Barbarian,” and Darth Vader in “Star Wars.”
The actor previously discussed how he was cast in “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope,” including the $7,000 salary he was paid to voice the iconic villain, Darth Vader, in a resurfaced interview with the American Film Institute.
“George wanted, pardon the expression, a dark voice,” Jones said of director George Lucas’ plans for the 1977 film. “So he hires a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters. And that’s the voice. That’s me.”
Discussing the fee he was paid for the role, Jones said: “I lucked out from all these so-called handicaps for a job that paid $7,000! And I thought that was good money. And I got to be a voice on a movie.”
In that same AFI interview, Jones said that when he returned for “The Empire Strikes Back,” the second “Star Wars” film released in 1980, he had planned to deliver a more nuanced vocal performance. Lucas, he said, disagreed and shut down his plans.
“He said, ‘We don’t know what we did right, so let’s just try what we did.’ Naturally, I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, more subtle, more psychologically oriented,” Jones said.
“And he said, ‘No, no. What we’re finding out is you need to keep his voice on a very narrow band of inflection because he ain’t human, really.'”
Disney used AI to recreate James Earl Jones’ voice in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” TV series
Jones reprised his vocal role as Darth Vader in 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and for a single line in 2019’s “Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.” In 2022, Vanity Fair reported that Lucasfilm partnered with the Ukrainian AI company Respeecher to ensure that the studio could continue to use Jones’ voice for future projects involving Darth Vader.
The technology was used for the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series on Disney+ in 2022. In it, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) tries to save a young Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) from an Imperial group called Inquisitors when he learns that Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) has transformed into Darth Vader.
During an interview with Total Film, McGregor said that filming scenes with the iconic villain “scared the shit” out of him.
“I’ve never met Darth Vader,” McGregor said. “I had rehearsed the scene with Vader, but not with the helmet on or anything like that. When we came to do the scene, when they shouted ‘action,’ he had to come from behind me. I turned around, and fucking Darth Vader was coming at me. It was like I was six again.”
