He’s about to enter the Star Wars galaxy as K-2SO in December’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and here he chats with Jon Waterhouse over at StarWars.com about the role.
StarWars.com: In Entertainment Weekly, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards describes Kaytoo as the antithesis of C-3PO with a little bit of Chewbacca’s personality in a droid’s body. Do you agree?
Alan Tudyk: Kaytoo was formerly an Imperial droid, so he used to be on the other side. He was a security droid and then Cassian, Diego Luna’s character, who owns Kaytoo, has done a memory wipe and reprograms Kaytoo to be a Rebel with the Alliance. Through that process, Kaytoo’s personality changes. I approached it as if he were freed, almost like a governor on an engine that holds the personality back. The Empire was much more of a regimented world where you’re much more forced to be in servitude of the Empire, which historically is the case. When he is reprogrammed, his personality comes out, which is a bit odd. At Star Wars Celebration Europe, they showed a little bit of a clip of him. There was no sound to it; I narrated it. You see Felicity Jones’ character hand me a bag, and she and Diego Luna’s character walk off. And I stand there holding the bag for just a moment, and I just drop it, because I’m not into holding her bag. [Laughs] C-3PO would definitely hold the bag and watch over it. Kaytoo is maybe a bit too honest. At that moment, he’s willful. It makes him a really fun character. For me, it made him much more human. I was very free to act within the confines of the script, but there were a lot of moments I could find, especially with such good actors, to express and be the unique character that Kaytoo is.
