Watch Ian McDiarmid Recite Iconic Palpatine Line Live at Star Wars Celebration

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the wise? It’s a story Ian McDiarmid will tell you. In Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (McDiarmid) recounts the Sith legend to Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), the Jedi Knight desperate to save the doomed Padmé (Natalie Portman). The Dark Lord of the Sith”had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying,” the future Emperor revealed, manipulating the corruptible Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side as the evil Sith Lord Darth Vader. 

Appearing on stage at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim on Thursday, McDiarmid ended the “Audience with The Emperor” panel by granting a fan’s request to recite the beginning of the iconic Sith speech. Standing before the crowd — with some among the audience raising their red-colored lightsabers in the air — McDiarmid said the line to cheers and applause. Watch the moment captured in the video below.

Earlier in the panel, McDiarmid fielded a fan’s question about the Star Wars Legends novel Darth Plagueis, and whether he had consulted the non-canon story when resurrecting Emperor Palpatine in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. 

“I didn’t. I mean, they’re terrific books. I’ve looked into them and so on, I haven’t read them in full, but in terms of not wanting it to influence the character,” said McDiarmid, who has played Palpatine across all three Star Wars trilogies. “Although I think quite a number of things that have been written about the character, not of George [Lucas’] gestation or J.J.’s [Abrams] or any of the other writers involved, have come from the ideas that these original authors had. But I wanted just to have the material that I knew.”

McDiarmid continued, “And, of course, I thought about it a bit, but I didn’t want to incorporate things that haven’t really been incorporated into the movies. I should probably add ‘yet’ to that, because all sorts of things may happen — no, I’m not hinting — in years to come.” 

The actor also revealed if the Emperor cameos in Obi-Wan Kenobi, the live-action Star Wars series reuniting Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Darth Vader (Christensen) a decade after Revenge of the Sith. Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi is now streaming on Disney+.