Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: The Heroic Sidekicks of Star Wars
On Sunday afternoon, the final day of Celebration, Ashley Eckstein moderated an entertaining, and at times unexpectedly heartfelt, panel featuring conversation among Anthony Daniels, Ahmed Best, and Alan Tudyk. Together, the four of them represented the different eras of Star Wars: the Original Trilogy, Prequel Trilogy, The Clone Wars, and the Kathleen Kennedy five-film slate. Despite nearly forty years between the filming of A New Hope and Rogue One, the four shared many common experiences and emotions from their involvement in Star Wars.
They began the panel by objecting – mostly but not entirely in jest – to the label “sidekicks” for their respective characters. Eckstein acknowledged that Ahsoka did start out as a bit of a snippy sidekick before taking on a more central thematic role in The Clone Wars and ultimately earning her own live-action series. Daniels reminded the audience that C-3PO has more dialogue in A New Hope than any other character, while Best good-naturedly apologized for Jar Jar’s significant moment in inadvertently facilitating Palpatine’s dictatorial rise.
Daniels and Best shared interesting and extended anecdotes about how they had been initially hired for the physical performance of their characters but not the vocal performance, until George Lucas later latched onto their work in character during production. Best also described in depth the shared inspirations with Lucas for his physicality as Jar Jar, including Jackie Chan, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin. Eckstein agreed that Lucas was “really big on homework” in providing films to watch and be inspired by during The Clone Wars.
Notably, all three onscreen actors underscored the importance of using human actors as the foundation for non-human characters in costumes (like Threepio or many Star Wars aliens) or computer-generated or computer-enhanced characters (like Jar Jar and K2-SO). Building on his earlier comments about becoming the voice of Threepio, Daniels insisted that a single actor doing the body and voice will deliver the best performance. He recalled that in A New Hope, the cantina aliens originally had been planned to be actors, but the costumes were placed on extras to save money: “A rubber head on an actor is a character. A rubber head on an extra is just there,” he lamented. Tudyk agreed on the importance of human performers, noting that, like Threepio, K2 has a static face, which requires characterization to be delivered through vocals and movement. Tudyk explained that his theater background, which similarly relies more on voice and movement than facial expression, really helped in creating K2-SO. Best now directs motion-capture work for a wide range of projects, and he emphasized that a mo-cap performer is not just a stand-in for a performance to be added digitally later, but rather must embody the character to provide a compelling groundwork for the subsequent digital effects.
Best closed the panel by reminding the assembled fans that the actors are fans too, that Star Wars is “deeply personal to every single one of us,” and that they genuinely do care what the fans think and want them to enjoy each new Star Wars adventure.
B.J. has served as editor of FANgirl Blog from its inception, as well as contributing reviews and posts on a range of topics. He edited Tricia’s novel Wynde, and is collaborating with her on several future projects set in that original universe.
Currently a tenured law professor in Florida, B.J. has been a practicing lawyer in Washington, D.C., a law clerk to a federal appeals court judge, and a law journal editor-in-chief. He is also a proud geek dad whose son who is a big fan of Star Wars and The Clone Wars.
