"Welcome to the first ever live screening of THE INTERVIEW!"
With that, director Jason Reitman introduced this special entry in his series of live-reads for this year's season of Film Independent at LACMA (or, in this case, the Ace Theater). He's openly speculated that choosing THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK for one of his patented events, where a bunch of actors do a cold, live reading of a well-known script, might've been a bad idea due to all the stage direction (and, presumably, the level of iconography associated with these roles). But I gotta say that the little "jazzy" experiment worked out; like the best of these live-reads, it managed to add a little something to the moments and characters we all know and love while paying homage to what we all loved about them to begin with. And with EMPIRE, it was a big deal to get it right.
Reitman brought his cast onto the stage to an ever-increasing level of fanfare:
Stephen Merchant as C-3PO.
Dennis Haysbert as Lando.
Jessica Alba as Princess Leia.
"Ellen mothafuckin' Page" (Reitman's words) as Han Solo.
Aaron Paul as Luke Skywalker.
Kevin Pollak as Yoda.
And, walking up the aisle surrounded by stormtroopers and Darth Vader himself, J.K. Simmons as Darth Vader.
Then Reitman started to wonder aloud: "Somebody's missing…" as a stagehand brought out a placard reading "CHEWBACCA". "In the role of Chewbacca, and only Chewbacca, Rainn Wilson!!" Rainn Wilson comes out in an appropriately scruffy beard.
"I don't know, guys, the stage still feels empty…in the role of the Emperor, originally played by Clive Revill, and the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, originally played by Alec Guiness, MARK HAMILL!!"
The house roared to greet the original Luke Skywalker himself, who casually joked, "Well, I hope I pass the audition!" as he sat down at his podium. And with an announcement that Reitman would be taking his first live-read acting role as R2-D2, they dug into "THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, based on a novel by George Lucas."
Let me try and give a general idea of what each actor brought to their respective roles:
C-3PO: As the always-frantic interpreter, the tall, lanky Stephen Merchant was ideally cast, and served as perfect, reliable comic relief. Adding a constant sense of confusion, as if this Threepio already had his wires crossed before his…accident in Cloud City, Merchant dove into his lines with the speed and discomfort that he's become known for, adding a little British theatricalism to the makeshift roster. Far from afraid to veer off script, he had no problem extrapolating on lines to create a sense of rhythm with his fellow actors, or simply to punch up a line. A choice encounter with a fellow droid had Merchant shoot out, "How fucking rude!" which of course the crowd ate up. In general, basically all of Merchant's line deliveries were causing Reitman (directly to his right) to crack up, which sometimes made it difficult for him to whistle his bleeps and bloops as R2-D2. He appeared to be having a great time, adding as much body language as he could (he sold Threepio's deactivation like a champ), and visibly enjoying the work of his fellow actors.
LANDO: Described in the script as "a smooth, suave black man" (to which Reitman exclaimed, "Oh, George…"), Lando shows up fairly late in the script, but once our heroes are on Cloud City, there was plenty for Haysbert to do as the former gambler-turned-entrepeneur. The moment he opened his mouth, it was clear he had the same silky charm that made Billy Dee Williams' performance such a fan-favorite. For his initial flirtation with Leia, the actor lowered his voice to a comically seductive tone that was so effective that Merchant (recently of HELLO, LADIES) guffawed aloud and tapped him on the shoulder as a sort of "Good for you!" gesture. Like Williams, his dealings with Vader were portrayed in such a way that you sense the goodness behind Lando's actions, and his, "This deal is getting worse all the time!" was grittier and angrier than in the original. Like Han, you like Lando despite his flaws, and Haybert charmed both the characters and the audience with his smooth-operator cadence. I'd forgotten how crucial Lando was to the second half of EMPIRE, and Haysbert made a hell of an impression in the handful of scenes he was featured in.
Also of note, he kept calling the character "Calreesian", which somehow made the name sound cooler and more foreign. Kinda like how you'd imagine Cerrano would say it.
HAN: This was the one that I'd been wondering about since this event was first announced, and choosing Ellen Page to play the role immediately sidestepped the inevitable comparison to Ford's ever-legendary interpretation of the character. I don't think Page was quite as enthusiastic about her own casting as Reitman was, and she didn't seem super-familiar with Han's trademark witticisms, but she did provide an alternate interpretation of our favorite space-smuggler. Coming off more like Rocket Raccoon than our traditional image of Solo, Page stammered orders to Chewbacca, played seductive with Princess Leia, and barked at C-3PO like a frustrated little kid struggling to prove himself. She recognized the loaded nature of Han and Leia's interactions as depicted by her and Alba, and she played into the crowd's anticipation nicely. Classic lines like, "Never tell me the odds," "Who's scruffy-lookin'?", and "I thought they smelled bad…on the outside," had completely different connotations when heard from Page's lips, and in Han's more tender moments, (like, of course, the immortal "I know"), the actress added a raw humanity to the character that we would never associate with Harrison Ford's performance. It was stunt-casting, for sure, but this time, it totally paid off, and I don't see another way to have portrayed Han without seeming like a mere imitation. In general, the performances of Han, Leia, and Luke made me appreciate how much Ford, Fisher, and Hamill brought to those roles, but Page's Han showed that there was surprisingly more than one way to skin this cat.
LEIA: Believe it or not, I actually did want to like Alba in the role, and I really hate to bag on her considering her questionable repertoire of performances, but I can't deny that she was the weak link of the cast. She relaxed into her chair and doled out Leia's commanding dialogue with a quiet reserve that seemed intentional, but which didn't serve the legendarily forceful character at all. She had trouble wrapping her lips around the more sci-fi names and places, and it was obvious she wasn't a real STAR WARS geek of any sort (which would've been fine had it not been apparent when she frequently paused in between lines). However, I'll say this; you could feel her coming alive during the Han-Leia moments. Her and Page both decided very early on to go about their fictional romance in a straightforward manner, which was ostensibly the only way it would work. Nevertheless, Alba seemed aware of the loaded nature of moments such as when she tells Han, "I happen to like nice men…" and played up the new take on their relationship when she could. When Reitman read the direction for the kiss that takes place just before, "I love you," "I know," someone in the audience heckled "DO IT!!" and somehow, Alba kept her composure and got through the scene after the audience howled in laughter. That interplay with Han was one of the most crucial things to get right in this live-read, and even if the actress' general lack of enthusiasm deflated my sails a bit, I can't fault her for her decision to play the girl-on-girl romance straight and low-key.
LUKE: I never really thought about how tortured Luke is during the events of EMPIRE, but I suppose I should've. He knows next to nothing about his own lineage, yet he's watched his aunt and uncle's corpses smolder, been scooped up from his home planet, become wrapped up in a war he only vaguely understood, and learned that he had unspeakable power from a man who, very soon afterwards, died right in front of him. All he knows is a. he has to become a Jedi, and b. he has to face Vader, and Aaron Paul did a great job of evoking the character's frustrated, confused tenacity. He didn't sound boyish, or even cool, but more like the kind of raw, angry lost soul that, well, Jesse Pinkman was. By the time he was struggling with Yoda and, finally, with Vader, the level of rage simmering in Paul's voice gave credence to the two's repeated references to how close he edged to the Dark Side. Between this and BREAKING BAD, you'd almost think this was what Paul was like in real life had it not been for his continual laughter at the other folks on stage. He was giving it his all and having a great time to boot, and showed me a side of young Skywalker I'd never seen or thought of before.
On top of all that, not ONE "bitch"!!!
VADER: Darth doesn't have a ton to do or say in this film until he gets to Cloud City, and serves as more of a background presence for a good amount of the script. Having said that, J.K. Simmons was pitch-perfect as the robotically-enhanced Anakin Skywalker, lowering his voice to a register we've never heard before and evoking James Earl Jones' powerful menace with a slow, ominous drawl. He mined laughs out of his various interactions with Admiral Piett (played by Merchant), and hit the perfect note of curiosity and secrecy whenever uttering the name, "Skywalker." When the moment inevitably came for him to face off against Paul's Luke, Simmons really went into high gear. Taunting his son as he attempts to coax him into the carbonite freezing chamber, his Vader cooed threats and teased the young Jedi as his fellow cast members leveled the mood by simulating the noises of their lightsabers. The legendary, unscripted moment (Reitman acknowledged this, and admitted that he added elements to smooth over the differences between the script and the film) that defines the film for many was perfectly dramatic. Paul's casting as Luke never made more sense than when denying the truth bomb Vader drops on him, and Simmons' plea for Luke to join him and "rule the galaxy as father and son" hit hard enough for the younger Skywalker's swan dive to feel less like a desperate escape and more like a genuine suicide. Simmons is hotter than ever due to his terrifying performance in WHIPLASH, and had a hell of an entrance to live up to, but he delivered on all accounts as one of the most iconic bad guys in movie history.
Surprisingly enough, however, it wasn't Simmons who walked away with the show in his pocket. That honor went to…
YODA: The big surprise of the night. As the diminutive Dagobah resident, Kevin Pollak went right for the Frank Oz voice we all know and love, and injected it with an extra dose of fuddy-duddy energy that won the crowd over from the first moment he spoke. Pollak's clear devotion to the original film was evident, from his sigh before breaking his goofy facade to speak to Obi-Wan, to taking the time to look upward for his climactic, "No…there is another," (which inexplicably drew audible gasps from the crowd). But that didn't stop him from making the role his own. Jumping on each of Luke's lines like he was crossing the street in FROGGER, he made Yoda into a quick, witty, limitlessly wise little sage that somehow made the lines we all know and love sing even more. He had an ever-present Cheshire Cat grin on his face and used his whole body for the part, emulating the jerky behavior of the original Frank Oz puppet. When he went into the monologues where Yoda coaches Luke in the Jedi ways, Pollak would tone down the accent to focus on creating a mood not unlike the one on swampy Dagobah from the flick, and there were some nice, sustained beats where the actor turned Kasdan and Brackett's lines into a sort of Art of War poetry. When Pollak's name was announced, I expected he'd find the humor in Yoda, but I was blown away by the extent of his immersion in the role. Other than Yoda, he would play his various walk-on characters with his tongue firmly in-cheek, getting laughs with stuff like "Roger," or "You're coming in just fine," but when it came time to dispense Jedi wisdom, the USUAL SUSPECT started acting in the best way possible. His performance really sent home how crucial Yoda is to this second (or fifth) STAR WARS chapter, and made me think of just how charming the character must've seemed for the first time back in 1980.
CHEWBACCA: Reitman wasn't kidding when he said that Rainn Wilson would only be playing Chewbacca; the esteemed actor didn't utter one word of English the entire show, content to growling in various tones and inflections from behind his shaggy beard. For a while, he was getting laughs just by growling at the appropriate times, but by the time Han is getting tortured and abducted, he seemed genuinely into it and injected some emotion into every growl. Chewie is often overlooked, especially when he's left out of the verbal acrobatics of Han, Leia, and Threepio, but Wilson's turn kept his presence relevant even without a 7-foot-tall dude in a Wookie costume standing there. Personally, I was getting a hell of a kick out of seeing Crimson Bolt acting as Boltie's sidekick this time around; their "rapport" couldn't have been hurt by the pair's interactions in both SUPER and JUNO.
EMPEROR/OBI-WAN: I always get a kick out of when Reitman (or whoever's manning the live-read) decides to bring an original cast member for one of these things (I'll never forget the standing O for Stephen Tobolowsky's reprisal of Ned Ryerson in GROUNDHOG DAY), and I had speculated that perhaps the only way to top Jones' Darth Vader would be to enlist Mark Hamill's near-unmatched voice talents. But man, when he walked out on stage, the entire crowd shot up and cheered as if Luke Skywalker, not Mark Hamill, had descended upon the Ace Theater. Harrison Ford had Indiana Jones, Carrie Fisher had her writing, and even Lucas himself had the prequels, but Hamill is the STAR WARS of the original trilogy in a way that maybe no one else is. After all, the OT is Luke's story, and just having the game actor onstage validated and legitimized the event in a big way.
But the dude had to play a couple of parts, and thankfully, his formidable voice talents served him well. You first hear Obi-Wan's voice advising Luke on Hoth, and right away, Hamill's pitch-perfect Alec Guiness impression drew out some well-earned laughs. His first big scene, however, was as Emperor Palpatine (originally seen as a misshapen hologram played by Rick Baker's wife, Elaine) opposite Darth Vader, and he and Simmons were able to create a sinister vibe in their short interaction which gave me head-to-toe chills. Hamill didn't directly imitate Ian McDiarmid or Clive Revill, but used his own patented "evil mastermind" voice that was quite appropriate for the enigmatic overlord. Of course, it didn't hurt that his lines directly referenced his old character, and hearing him say, "The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi," made me chuckle giddily as I conjured up images of oh-so-badass Jedi Luke in RETURN OF THE JEDI. When he finally came back as Obi-Wan for the big scene with Luke and Yoda, he toned down the Guiness impersonation somewhat, while evidently having a blast on the other end of the conversation he portrayed onscreen almost 35 years ago.
Hamill also portrayed Boba Fett, who doesn't have all that many lines, but whose name was greeted with cheers upon his first appearance in the script (which mentions him by name even though the dialogue doesn't). Just…so cool to hear Boba Fett talking about Skywalker in Hamill's voice. Hit the nostalgia points in all the right places (and made me appreciate how cool Jason Wingreen's voice sounded before Lucas laid Temeura Morrison's voice in there for continuity).
The show was certainly a success, but Reitman was right to suspect that the level of action in the script would be an obstacle. It was a little tough to get through the Hoth section, specifically, due to the specificity of the descriptions (really, most of the scene reads exactly how its portrayed) and the banality of the "Rogue leader, standing by"-type dialogue. However, the other action scenes were broken up enough by character moments to get the audience into the scene. The worm-cave scene was peppered up both by Han, Leia, and Threepio's interplay and the description of the closing teeth as "stalagmites", not giving away the joke. I kept waiting for the descriptions of Luke and Vader's lightsaber battle to finish so we could go back to hearing Simmons goad the boy whom we know to be his character's son, but I never waited long.
I've been to a handful-plus of these LACMA live-reads (if you ever get a chance, I HIGHLY recommend attending, especially if you're a fan of the film in question), and this was unsurprisingly one of my favorite ones so far. All the principals (aside from Alba) were ideally cast and came into it with pitch-perfect reverance and energy. Other than Page's gender-flipped take on Han, no one radically reinvented their roles (an inevitability, given EMPIRE's level of popularity), but Merchant, Pollak, and Simmons were able to make their characters pop in a unique, original way, while Hamill, Haysbert, and Wilson were alive and engaged as they inhabited their various roles. Paul made Luke's pained attempts to train feel like more of a struggle, and I felt for the upstart Jedi and his emotional journey from boy to man more than ever.
If nothing else, this live-read somehow made me appreciate the legendary, iconic work by Irvin Kershner, Kasdan, Brackett, and, of course, The Bearded One's work on this a little bit more than I had before. Hearing what was already on the page makes the brilliant synergy of the film, from its script to its art direction to the iconic performances, seem even more serendipitous. It was a hell of a tribute to Lucas' most beloved work to date, and a great vehicle to experience those lines, characters, and moments we all love in a brand-spankin' new way.
This got me more pumped for EPISODE VII than ever before. But before that, let's see what Reitman's got brewin' for GOODFELLAS next month…
P.S. I kept that large CHEWBACCA placard.
Several photos via Entertainment Weekly.
