Star Wars fans get very excited when a new droid pops up. Ever since R2-D2 rolled and whistled his way into people’s hearts, droids with minor roles like Mouse Droids and Gonks and droids with major roles like BB-8 have all been fan-favorites.
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But the main new droid in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, K-2SO, might be a bit different from what people are expecting. His dry sense of humor was on display in the trailers, and at the capable hands of Alan Tudyk, who did both motion capture and voice acting for the droid, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. What Tudyk underlines, though, is the dangerous prospect of counting on a turncoat droid.
“He was formerly with the Empire, so he has that backstory,” he told Andi Gutierrez in this week’s episod of The Star Wars Show. “He could be a danger if he were so inclined,” he warned.
Tudyk, who has done both voice (he’s in several Disney Animation films) and motion capture work in the past, said that Kaytoo’s personality changed the way he performed this role.
“Kaytoo, he has personality in his movement, and it worked better and transfered better in the movie if he had a little bit of a slouch,” he said. “There’s one point in the movie where he’s walking down a hallway and passes by another K-2 model. He’s like a soldier, and walking perfectly, and very straight and upright. Kaytoo is kind of loping along a little bit. I think that’s kind of what makes Kaytoo a little bit more accessible, and gosh, I’m gonna say it, lovable.”
Tudyk wore stilts for the motion capture role, and said that “running on sand” was particularly difficult in performing the role.
The actor said that only when the merchandising started coming out did he realize what a big deal it all was. “I have a bobble head!”
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits US theaters December 16, 2016. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it’s the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core “Skywalker Saga” of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: “Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.”
