Richard Armitage Reminisces About Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

While Richard Armitage’s acting career has had highlights like The Hobbit series, and continues on with a new TV series, Berlin Station, the storied actor had one role special to him, a bit role on Naboo as a fighter pilot in Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace.

“I had watched [Star Wars] pretty much from the moment I’d been watching movies,” Armitage told ComicBook.com in an interview. “It was kind of an accident that I got the job, really. I was still in the final year of drama school, and I’d gone in for a general casting. I got the part because I was tall and lanky. I turned up thinking, I had this one line to say, and kept practicing it with my American accent over and over, relentlessly doing it.”

Of course, all that rehearsal was met with a surprising result.

“I actually ended up with a computer generated voice. But I still put the work in, I did all the background on my [character],” he said.

As for the voice he’d created? “A little bit Texan, y’all” he said with a smile.

The prequel trilogy of Star Wars has long fought a battle with a contingency of fans who lambasted the increased use of computer generated imagery and some convoluted moments in the script; however, the trilogy has had its supporters come out in increasing droves in recent years, and many fans that appreciate it for bringing about Star Wars: The Clone Wars and subsequent stories and series.

Armitage can be seen now on the blu-ray and dvd release of Alice Through the Looking Glass as King Oleron and the Epix series Berlin Station, with multiple other films on the way soon.