That Hashtag Show spoke to Chris Bartlett, the actor that steps into the C-3PO costume when Anthony Daniels isn’t around, and whose performance as the aforementioned droid led to a role in The Mandalorian as Q9-0.
One of the first things you’ll learn upon speaking with Chris Bartlett is that he’s one of us; a Star Wars fan to the core. Like me, he grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy and the toys that came with it. Fast forward to 2003. Bartlett, again, like so many others, was building his own Star Wars costumes and decided to do a character not many others had done: C-3PO.
Becoming C-3PO
“[W]henever you’re making these costumes, the dream is always, man, I hope this turns out good. You ‘ah, man, wouldn’t it be cool’ if this, you know, turned out so well that’s someone at Lucasfilm… thought that it was worthy of being used in something. But of course, none of that’s going to happen because that’s all a dream.”
His exceptional performance as C-3PO directly resulted in his casting in The Mandalorian:
“Because they knew of my work there, somebody who worked on this show recommended that I go in, or that they give me a call. So they gave me a call, I went down for a fitting. I didn’t know what it was for until I got there and they said it was for a droid bounty hunter. And I said ‘oh man, could you imagine? the best of both worlds, you know?’ And they showed me a picture of Zero and I just thought ‘this is like a mix between Boba Fett and C-3PO!’ I did an audition in in the suit.”
Read the interview in full at the link below.
