'Chewbacca' talks about 'Star Wars' old and new
By GREG OLIVER -- For JAM! Movies
TORONTO -- Peter Mayhew has come to terms with playing second fiddle to Chewbacca.
In fact, on first glance, seeing his dishevelled hair, unshaven face, and gangly stride, one could almost say that he is the famous Wookie from a galaxy far, far away.
Mayhew, 57, was in Toronto on the weekend for the Canadian National Science Fiction Expo, talking to fans about his experiences as Chewbacca in three Star Wars movies, a TV special (the forgettable "Star Wars Christmas Special"), and even an appearance on "The Muppet Show".
He's a regular on the convention circuit now, having embraced his alter-ego when the "Star Wars" movies were reissued in 1997 to celebrate the franchise's 20th anniversary. Mayhew said that it was "nice to be included" in the hype around the re-releases.
The seven-foot-four Mayhew realized that he was "still a member of the family", so he organized his fellow, lesser-known comrades in prosthetics into the "Star Wars: Behind The Masks" tour, with the likes of David Prowse (Darth Vader), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker).
During a question and answer session on the weekend, Mayhem recounted how he got the part of Chewbacca.
He was working as a hospital attendant at the King's College Hospital in London, when film producer Charles Schneer saw his photo in a newspaper. Schneer got Mayhew cast as the Minotaur in "Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger", and that introduced him to many people within the British studio system.
Not long afterwards, he got a call from a secretary for George Lucas, who wanted him to come in to talk about another part.
"Naturally my curiosity got the better of me," Mayhew said.
"On one wall behind his desk were all the characters, "Star Wars" characters. He had the main characters in the front, in the middle, mainly humans and the two droids. On each end, he had the two big guys, Vader on one end, Chewy on the other. I looked at Vader. It said six-foot-seven. That's too short. So I looked at the other end, there's a drawing of a Neanderthal man by Ralph McQuarrie, and it said eight-foot-plus, with a question mark. I thought, 'Got it'!"
Being a polite Brit, when George Lucas came into the room, Mayhew stood to shake his hand. It's easy to joke about the meeting now. Being so big "does help to influence directors," he kidded.
Less than three weeks later, he had been fitted with his mask and costume and was filming. The first scene they did was Docking Bay 94, where Han Solo and Chewbacca are taking off from Tatooine with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C3PO onboard the Millennium Falcon.
"It was most confusing at the time because it was shot out of sequence," Mayhew said. The first scene in which the audience actually sees Chewy is the Mos Eisley Cantina, where he is talking to Kenobi.
After the movie came out, he returned to work at the hospital. "At the time, nobody realized how long it was going to last," he explained of his decision.
Soon, though, "Star Wars" was a massive international hit and Mayhew was happy to sign on for the sequel. He called "The Empire Strikes Back" the "finest" movie of the trilogy he was in.
"In (the first) 'Star Wars', you portrayed your character. But in 'Empire', you knew your character, it was formed ... Therefore it was a lot easier, and it made a lot more sense to have the same guys do it ... We got a lot more done in a working day than we did on any of the other ones," Mayhew said.
With the change of location to Norway to film the scenes for the ice planet Hoth were filmed, Mayhew learned to better appreciate the burdens of his costume. Arriving at the location for Hoth, which he charitably described as being in the "middle of nowhere", Mayhew remembered asking himself what he'd gotten himself into, but he did know one thing: "That costume has to be the warmest!"
Plans for "Return Of The Jedi" were not finalized until "Empire" was a hit. Mayhew donned the costume again and was pleased with the warmth it provided in the forests of Oregon, where the scenes of Endor were filmed.
The crew was more than a little concerned for his safety, however. "It's Bigfoot country," he recalled being told. "They said, 'Do not go out there in costume, or even half costume because, we don't want a Wookie in certain parts being blown away by a double-barrelled shotgun'."
It's particularly ironic, then, that Mayhew has been pegged to play Bigfoot in an independent film titled "Bigfoot Among Us", scheduled to start shooting this fall.
Almost 25 years since "Star Wars" was first released, Mayhew has a couple of theories about the popularity of Chewbacca, made especially poignant by Chewy's death in a recent "Star Wars" novel.
"Basically Chewy is a teddy bear," he said. "I think that the reason that Chewy is so popular is that everybody -- I don't care who you are or what age you are or what sex you are -- had a teddy bear of some sort at some stage."
Plus there is the memorable Wookie language, which was actually voiced by a cinnamon-coloured bear from the San Diego Zoo. "[They] recorded it when it was happy, recorded it when it was sad, recorded it when it was hungry, recorded it when it was full. And if you listen over the three movies, there is a language, because it is happy, it is sad, all these things you are able to express."
Mayhew was pretty happy to see there were Wookies in "The Phantom Menace" -- two are shown in the Senate chamber during Queen Amidala's call for a vote of no-confidence -- and he expects to see more of the tree-dwelling species from the planet Kashyyyk, especially in the third movie. Chewy is said to be over 200 years old, and Mayhew believes that Lucas has to explain the Wookie's life debt to Han Solo.
And life other "Star Wars" fans, Mayhew is eagerly awaiting the next installment, "Attack Of The Clones". Unlike most fans, he has connections, even they haven't been very helpful.
"It was a wonderful series of movies to do, and hopefully when " (Episode) II" comes out next year, I am going to see it as a fan.
"I don't know the story. I can't get anything out of little Kenny. He won't tell me anything. I want to go see it and make up my own mind whether I like it or not."
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