Talking Maul Live @ DCM19 with Peter Serafinowicz

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show Is Blank Check And last we shall reveal ourselves to the podcast Hey, that was great

[00:00:25] Hi everybody, my name's Griffin Newman I'm David Sims This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David Where we go through filmographies of directors Who had massive success early on in their careers And were given a series of Blank checks

[00:00:36] To make whatever crazy passion projects they want That's what our podcast is now Right It's now what our podcast used to be Our podcast used to be about one movie And one movie only The first film in the Phantom Menace trilogy It is called The Phantom Menace

[00:00:55] Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace Phantom And for 11 episodes that was the only thing we discussed Yeah 11 beautiful episodes Somehow discovered that in fact other Star Wars movies were made We went through them and then we evolved into something different

[00:01:08] But for today, for this live episode at the Delclos Marathon In the loudest room in America We will be flashing back to Phantom Menace With a very special guest We're checking a box we never checked We never got to speak to someone who was there Right

[00:01:28] An instrumental part Of the Phantom Menace On set every day, right? Now we've often said that Sith Lords are not allowed to listen to our podcast That's true They're not, we don't respect them We don't respect their politics They're not allowed to listen

[00:01:43] But maybe they're allowed to guest Sure, you're bylaw Ladies and gentlemen With us in physical form Is the vocal form of Darth Maul himself For a special episode we're calling Talking Maul Peter Seraphano, ladies and gentlemen Hi Thanks for being here Peter Hi, hello

[00:02:09] Oh, it's nice to be here So you know I'm sure for an actor like you With an illustrious career It's probably frustrating that you have one performance that looms so large That it is all anyone ever wants to talk about with you

[00:02:26] You know, I mean it's like it's asking Brando to do Stella Right You know it's asking Pacino to introduce you to his little friend So thank you for coming here and you know Opening it up I know this is a sensitive protective character for you

[00:02:43] Yeah, I mean, well that's where do I start I mean I'm just about I'm about a third of the way through my autobiography at the moment It should be out Writing or reading it Writing I mean it's taken so long It took me

[00:03:03] I'd say it took me two months just to choose the font Yeah, yeah, that's a tough one And Comic Sans Is it Comic Sans? Can you give us that as a skluce or You know, like about Corrier I don't want to give any spoilers Oh shit, Corrier, yeah

[00:03:19] It's like typewriter face, you know Yeah That interjection of course comes from our producer Ben Who you may know better as birthday, Benny Because today is in fact Yeah, I've mentioned it's my birthday His 32nd birthday Benjamin Hosley ladies and gentlemen Wearing the ceremonial birthday sunglasses

[00:03:37] Drinking the ceremonial birthday afternoon beer Producer Benny, representing With a ceremonial birthday hangover Yeah How you feeling, Ben? I'm feeling 32 And ready to take the world on I don't know about you but I'm feeling 32 Yeah, hey Okay, alright But yeah, it's my birthday

[00:03:57] So you can't reveal the font to us But you've been working on About a third of the way through your autobiography Yeah, it's called More Than Me And it's I think for me, it's a chance for me to Delineate Sure Between the role and myself

[00:04:20] Okay, I'm glad you're saying this Because I was afraid to kind of touch this with you But I feel like in terms of public perception You and Darth Maul are one in the same Yeah, yeah, of course It's your Mr. Bean It's your Pee Wee Herman You know

[00:04:33] You almost don't have an identity outside of it And I don't know how much you fight with that You lean into it Do people like scream when they see you in the streets? Yeah, they do You know, I have to I mean, I walk around silently as well

[00:04:47] That's the big thing Because if I heard you, that would be the tip off Yeah, so Most people tend to walk around And just talk to themselves constantly And I just don't do that You know, I have to keep my mouth closed Yeah And

[00:05:06] Yeah, I, you know, at first I tried to resist it You know, I tried to resist being sort of Swallowed by this character Losing my own identity And I started to do that And then I realized what's the point You know Who's Maul and who's me And

[00:05:28] I started You know I would put on like some The makeup and stuff And glue some Brazil nuts to my head For the little horns Just when I was at home myself Because to be clear, this is stuff you never did on camera No, no, no, no

[00:05:46] You don't have to physically play the character But I wanted to know what it felt like Sure, sure You know So yeah Did you carry around a stick To that help with your performance? I, yeah, I carried it into the voiceover booth Oh cool With me and I

[00:06:11] Yeah This is a no-bits podcast Yeah There are no bits on this show So we should mention that No, there were no bits Yeah, no bits It's also my birthday so It is Ben's birthday We should mention that I don't know if it's been mentioned before Happy birthday

[00:06:24] Oh thanks I mean I wasn't fishing for that but And I want to ask you You know an actor prepares I mean I feel like that is the real Ear mark of a great actor Is the preparation, the thoroughness And your understanding of the character

[00:06:38] And how much you come to the set Or you know the recording booth Uh huh With a full sort of grasp So I'm looking at Wikipedia here Which we all know is the preeminent Star Wars Wikipedia Uh huh And it says here

[00:06:54] You know in the early life tab Of Darth Maul Uh the boy who had become known as Darth Maul was born the son of mother Talzin on Darth Amar As a Darth Merrian Zabrak male He was a night brother and had two blood brothers Feral and savage, oppressed

[00:07:08] Now how much did that Factor into Feral and savage? Oppressed Okay Which are subtle names Is he Maul or oppressed? Yeah, yeah they are As is Maul Yes Because the connotation here Is Maul is more subtle than oppressed It's like being born and giving the name

[00:07:29] Like milk man or something right You know they're really setting you up His parents kind of called his shot Right you know Darth Evil Savage oppressed But so how much were you sort of playing Because your siblings don't appear in the film No

[00:07:44] But did you have to sort of play Your line readings with an awareness of Being one of three children Yeah I had to remember what it I had to try to remember What it would have been like to have been little Dary

[00:07:56] As you know as his friends call him Dary Maul Yeah And yeah that was it was it was it was difficult It was a difficult couple of years That I spent in Tunisia I just went and I didn't act at all

[00:08:21] I just was you know and I opened up a little A little cobbler's you know a shoe shop Oh you pulled the Dan Lewis Well no he took it over from me Oh my god You decide to start acting He decides to stop acting

[00:08:37] Did you give him any cobbling tips You know what he was He just didn't want to know He didn't want to know He wanted to start He likes to learn on the job Yeah Ben is a close personal friend of Dan Lewis

[00:08:50] By the way which is why he called him Dan Lewis Otherwise that would be a very bizarre and presumptuous thing to do But Dan Dan I roll friends I mean Yeah Okay I mean I do actually know DDL Oh cool okay And you know quite well

[00:09:06] I mean I haven't seen him for a while You know he is going back now to Cobblé Yeah I mean it's I think it's It's really expanded as well since his little hiatus Yeah he's doing women's now too Yeah right where he owns Payless People don't realize that

[00:09:22] But Dan Lewis owns the Payless shoes chain But he doesn't do it for the attention So he takes his name off of it You know it's kind of in the shadows I guess I realized I mean you said that thing about preparing in Tunisia

[00:09:34] And I guess I went a little too fast You know a little too deep Let's talk about the process of getting this role Because as you implied there were several years between When you got the role and when you actually started work

[00:09:46] And several years of campaigning before that Right? Yeah yeah the predated even the notion of doing any kind of Prequel to Sure sure Yeah So I believe I mean you had told me that You started preparing for Darth Maul

[00:10:02] The second you walked out of seeing the original Star Wars Yes In 1977 Yeah That was sort of the start of the process How old would you have been I was five Right Wow Right that's good Yeah And What can I say I you know

[00:10:20] I was a kid I had big ambitions Yeah And I was very spoiled And I always got what I wanted Such as to see Star Wars You wanted to see Star Wars Yeah And then number two was to be in Star Wars Yeah You know

[00:10:37] When I actually saw Star Wars My mom took me to see it when I was five And this is absolutely true I begged her to go and I begged her I nagged her you know for us to go and see it And after about 20 minutes

[00:10:57] I was all fidgety and was saying Please can we go home so boring And I think it was one of those One of those Tarkin scenes Which I kind of Oh you weren't fan of Tarkin When I was five He's a tyrant Well it's not for you

[00:11:13] Yeah not a great guy Let me be clear The politics are a little fudgy Yeah But anyway yeah You know I grew to love the film though Right Did it bug you when the sequels came out And you weren't in those either though

[00:11:30] Like Empire Strikes Back comes around Well you know it bugged me even In the first minute of sitting down In the cinema it was like episode four And it was then that I knew Yeah but what about episode one Right So your goal was very very focused

[00:11:50] It was I need to be in episode one I don't know how long it's going to take For them to get there But I'm going to be part of it Yeah I just want to say That's a really It's really quite an awkward thing

[00:12:03] Of George Lucas to have done that isn't it To start with episode four Yeah yeah Star Wars Episode four You know I know we all know it now You know but like That was it wasn't it I mean they didn't change that Like retroactively did they

[00:12:18] It was always episode four Wasn't it I believe so it's a pretty arrogant move Because you have all these people Sitting down in theater They go I think I have All the necessary context To watch this one movie And then the credits start

[00:12:30] And you go wait a second What the fuck do I got to Go back home Rent something from the library VHS didn't even exist then So you go what I got to go home Wait for episodes one through three To come back on TV

[00:12:40] I know I miss them And also you know The percentage of people Who aren't that good with Roman numerals It's got to be 15% Right right You know Episode eight Episode six They will tour Right There's that element And then the other element too Is episode

[00:12:56] I thought I was seeing a movie Not a TV show You know what I'm saying This dummy thinks they're called episodes They're called movies bro Beware of it was called movie four Right when that's spooked people That's movie 43 So you start this campaign What is movie 43?

[00:13:13] It's a movie starring All of Hollywood's brightest stars Engaging in Oh wait is this the Farrelly Brothers thing Yeah you got Jackman Yes Hugh Jackman plays Halley A testicle man Yeah that's right Halley Berry dates Stephen Merchant I think I believe I believe Dennis Quaid fucks a phone

[00:13:32] I think that's one of the plots of that film Okay That he fucks a phone What kind of phone is it? I think it's a phone that looks like a lady I think that was the joke Okay so it's a landline Well no Well I You think

[00:13:47] Are you saying that landline phones to you remind you Of ladies Like a cell phone I was just trying to get clear if it was a mobile phone Or if it was just like a hardwired phone I believe it was kind of a new fangled smart phone

[00:13:58] Oh I see That looked like a lady I think that was the idea So is it one of those like these phones they're out of control Yes Dennis Quaid can fuck one now Right Is that the idea It's kind of a cautionary tale

[00:14:09] It was kind of a precursor to black mirror We're going over on a tangent Okay yeah I'm sorry we gotta get back on focus I just have to ask one question Sure Does the phone still work afterwards That's a great question Yeah

[00:14:21] We might have to bring you back for a special episode about Movie 43 That segment of Movie 43 when Dennis Quaid fucks a phone I knocked my glass over but there's no water in it this time Okay so the year is 1977 In Hugo I'm going to be in episode one

[00:14:35] Yeah And production of the film does not start until 1997 1997 20 years Right there's 20 years where you're waiting for production to even start You're waiting for the work to go Yeah yeah yeah yeah And so other than spending time in Tunisia wandering around with a giant stick Yeah

[00:14:51] What other exercises are you doing to try to find Because do you know the character is going to be Darth Maul Or are you just trying to find a place to fit into this universe Yeah no I I think I had an idea of who he was

[00:15:05] He came to me almost fully fleshed out when I was in a mall Okay And They misspelled his name In the titles which I was very very Obsessed about Especially as I spent like two or three years You know on fonts really

[00:15:33] Just choosing the right font so you know to see a typo Right But the font was right Does it throw off the font though if the name is spelled wrong Maybe now the font looks bad Yeah maybe

[00:15:47] Did you almost for a second think it was a weird font where sometimes L's look like yous Or did you immediately realize that's a typo Yeah no no I No it was just a mistake Yeah it was just a mistake The person was fired

[00:16:03] She no longer works in the industry Or I believe she doesn't work at all Yeah yeah It's not like an official thing but she's essentially been blacklisted from all trade From all trade Right all manners of work Yeah Her face is just up in everyone's office

[00:16:26] Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like you came to George Lucas with this fully developed character Yeah So you hear okay episode one's happening and you immediately said get me a meeting with Georgie Porgy I got something to tell him

[00:16:41] When do you shave your head and put a hood on Sorry what When do you shave your head and wear a hood That's a good question Ben Why don't I shave my head and wear a hood It's just a character again

[00:16:52] Did you do any shaved head hood wearing exercises No Okay No no I didn't Okay It was mostly the stick Yeah it was a lot of stick stuff I did investigate with I enlisted a doctor and a magician

[00:17:12] An illusionist that I know where I wanted to sever my Toss my upper body from my lower body Right I wanted just to see if I could be sliced in half kept alive just even for like you know 20 days Just so you could play that moment properly Yeah

[00:17:31] Because you as a voiceover actor in that moment had to go Yeah You want to really sell that from a place of experience Yeah sure sure You know your stuff man I've seen the film a couple times I think we all have Can we just take that again

[00:17:48] Yeah great I mean I'm sorry I hear with the guy himself Do you want to do it am I putting you on the spot Yeah He walked into that So tell me how that first meeting with George went It was fine

[00:18:05] It was fine you just said to him here's the deal Did you have a sort of presentation where your poster board's power point I had a power point On that I prepared on a CD on a CD but CD ROM drives hadn't been invented basically

[00:18:26] I mean they were they were I can't remember how I managed to do mine And also power point as well And George famously not very into technology No He's a real Luddite I'm running off of flop He lives on a ranch

[00:18:42] He lives on a ranch he's a simple man of the earth Did you go to the ranch He likes old fangled things Yeah I don't care how fangled things are Yeah you're pretty fangle agnostic Yeah Yeah No I didn't go to the ranch No it's too bad

[00:19:01] I went to a half size replica of the ranch Sure Where I stayed for like a long weekend It was very uncomfortable because the room was just far too small for me You're a tall man Yeah

[00:19:18] I mean for any man you know it was I mean I could just about get in But if you can imagine everything being like half the size It makes more of a difference than you would think Cause the walls too you know The door frames Everything

[00:19:32] And the fixtures too I imagine The sink you can get one hand in Even the food and the fridge That's The miniaturized I mean you know I was hungry Yeah I mean I wasn't bored I had nothing to do

[00:19:45] So at what point in the development process do you decide Oh I can't physically play this character I will be taking away from my voice work If I inhabit the character physically I don't think I've ever decided that I've never been happy with that decision Wow

[00:20:02] Okay so this is true That decision was made for you That decision was made for you Yeah it was I was very very upset at the time And very overweight as well So it was a little different than their kind of image of the character

[00:20:18] Was that sort of the tension? Yeah I think so and mine Right right right But so what? Yeah yeah right Yeah I was I was very overweight I was very my You know what happens to me is My personal hygiene just goes to pot When I'm feeling depressed

[00:20:37] Or frustrated or Also just normal as well Right right just in general You kind of dislike hygiene I think that's fair to say I just I don't prioritize it Sure Over anything No Right you would even One could say De-prioritize it Under everything Yeah yeah

[00:21:01] So this decision is made To have a mostly physical character Yeah Be played by someone other than the man who has spent two decades Developing this character Has read this character Has birthed this character But fortunately Well unfortunately I should say I was kind of prepared for this

[00:21:22] Oh wow What if you know What if they insist What if I'm just not the right fit In this industry they go Hey sometimes we're going in a different direction Yeah And And I thought that I'd found The guy You know I thought well this is the guy

[00:21:40] You know when I When I I think and it was It was probably It was a few years after The first film came out And I was watching Ghostbusters And And the You know everywhere you went The sound that that song Ray Parker Jr

[00:22:03] Right hit song big song And I just knew from Even without seeing him Just in hearing his voice I just knew that physically He would be the right fit Wow so you recommended Ray Parker Jr Yeah Ray Parker Sr's son That's right That's right Yeah that's right Right

[00:22:23] And I don't know what happened There was some kind of mix up Of course they cast Ray Park Yeah So it's almost like the phone cut out Two thirds of the way into you reciting the name Yeah I think maybe that's what happened Yeah

[00:22:39] They got everything but the Urr Jr Yeah yeah I think at home Our phone line was on a paper word Okay Scheme and I mean on one hand it's nice to know that they were listening Because they did take your suggestion

[00:22:53] They just didn't hear all of your suggestions Yeah yeah I don't know you know once again I mean Tremendous respect for the craft of acting And I understand how much it takes out of a person To really embody a character But I have to ask

[00:23:08] In the great tradition of Inside the Actors Studio Is Darth Maul here with us today? Look on his face is one of delight Just for the listeners By any chance Just utter delight Darth Maul in the party space I'd be 19th annual Delclos Marathon In New York City

[00:23:26] Yeah is that him coming through the door right now? Creed Is he doing a 3AM bit show at the Magnet Theater? He might be Oh my god It's like he's here Ladies and gentlemen, Darth Maul I'm cowering in terror Darth Maul is here with us today

[00:23:43] Darth how are you doing today? I'm sorry I just get a little emotional You're going to ask the swear word question Griffin? What's the swear word question? Inside the Actors Studio Darth Maul? Yes Based on the query by Benoit Pouveau or whatever

[00:24:07] I don't know I could look it up Darth, what is your favorite swear word? It's probably shit It's a classic What sound do you love the most? The sound when I unplug the water from my bathtub Good sound, that's a very satisfying sound I actually agree with that

[00:24:40] Darth What noise do you hate? There's two noise questions in this thing? Yeah it's a little horizontal What noise do I hate? I don't know, I kind of like all noises really Wow If I was pushed I would say bagpipes

[00:25:10] But with regret because they do have a place Yes, we can be hauntingly beautiful In the right context Go ahead, no please Mr. Maul If heaven exists What would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Such a stupid question

[00:25:35] Don't blame me, blame Bernard Pouveau Who wrote these questions? This is some fucking Bernard Pouveau Who is he? I don't know, he's hosted a French talk show He's a host of a French talk show And then James Lipson just fucking comes in

[00:25:51] Oh this is from inside the Actors Studio He's stealing the questions from someone else Sorry Darth, hold on one second while Peter and I talk Some French dude comes up with these ten questions And then Lipton is like yonk Right And just throws him onto his show

[00:26:08] Tail of his show What is Lipton's day job? Like how to get that gig Great question He is Dean Emeritus of the Actors Studio School at Pace University That's right Alright, so he's Kind of a figurehead Yeah Well, he wrote for some soap operas

[00:26:25] I'm going through his career right now James Lipton, we're talking about James Lipton, yeah Okay, and Jimmy Lipton Apparently he was in France And he was watching, what's this guy's name? Bernard Pouveau Pouveau, but it's spelled like pivot Which is good for an interviewer

[00:26:40] You know, that you can pivot But he can pivot, yeah And he decided to steal this guy's bit Yeah The pivot questionnaire Wow Apparently pivot stole it from Proust So there you go Marcel Proust He came up with these questions Sorry for that side tangent, Mr. Mall

[00:26:59] Now I will repeat the question Oh, I thought we'd forgotten the question Not at all If God exists What would you like to hear? Here's a little twist I'm going to throw on it What would you like to hear her say? Oh This is the 21st century

[00:27:17] When you get to the pearly gates Oh Do you see what I did there? No Did you hear what he did there? I did Okay Yeah You know what, I just don't know I don't know Thank you Thank you so much for being with us

[00:27:44] That's what God would say Mr. Mall That's what God would say I just don't know I just don't know I just don't know So how long did the entire process of recording your dialogue take? Our schedule was probably about It was about a week per word

[00:28:09] A week per word So it's like, say, 12 weeks? 12 weeks It was important for me and for George and the rest of the Lucasfilm crew that every syllable was enunciated correctly Sure That the tom was consistent and conveyed the correct emotion Right So acting was an important

[00:28:45] He wanted the lines to be active is sort of what you're saying Yeah But in a very sort of macro way in a kind of analyzing even down to like 1,000th of a second he would analyze the waveform and I would see him looking at it

[00:29:05] crossing my fingers and then I'd see a little almost imperceptible shake of his head at a particular bit of a sine wave You couldn't hear It was almost like a dog hearing a higher pitch I could We both could You knew going in Yeah That's really fascinating

[00:29:24] because so often in acting there's a sense of naturalism getting a rhythm being in the moment interacting with another actor So that kind of presence and immediacy and flow is really important to making dialogue sing but this kind of macro and micro approach of going over every syllable

[00:29:44] you know, one week at a time it really shows in Phantom Menace because the dialogue has this real Richness organic naturalistic flow to it from beginning to end Yeah You watch this movie and you go, is this all improvised? It feels so light and off the cuff

[00:30:01] You know, it just feels like this is what it sounds like when my friends are eye or talking you know, sitting around with a couple beers And that's how he did it I noticed that you called it Phantom Menace Please don't do that Star Wars Episode 1 Phantom Menace

[00:30:13] I'm sorry There are two colons there Yeah True Four dots Yeah There's a definite article too You're dropping It's just, it's tempting I fall into this habit because it's the original Phantom Menace movie So for me, like when I saw it I was just like

[00:30:28] This is just the Phantom Menace This is the Phantom Menace You know what I'm saying? Yeah And then we got the Phantom Menace sequels obviously We have the rest of the Phantom Menace trilogy Phantom Menace 2 Attack the Colons Yeah, yeah, yeah Phantom Menace 3 Revenge of the Phantom Yeah

[00:30:42] Phantom Menace 4 I mean by then I just lost interest You know Yeah The, I was, I was disappointed My original vision As is reflected in the title was that There were gonna be a lot more ghosts A lot more ghosts Yeah

[00:31:00] Was it just gonna be set in a house the whole thing? Yeah Did you read that draft? I think I just, I overheard industry chatter Yeah, I mean it's like a legend in Hollywood The ghost draft What's the size of the ghost? Oh great question Big?

[00:31:15] They're kind of, they're sort of human sized They're traditional, they're traditional ghosts How moist were the ghosts? How moist? Great question Now you're being silly No, no, no, no This is a serious question Or are they water ghosts? Just to clarify Ben likes when things are big

[00:31:30] and he likes when things are wet He thinks it's stupid when in movies things are small and dry Especially when it comes to villains I feel like ghosts can be villains Although not always For Ben every villain should be at least 12 feet tall and dripping wet

[00:31:45] The mummy is his idea of like a nightmare Very dry True dry Right, right I haven't seen that film yet I haven't seen Have you seen our mummy? Our mummy No I've never seen a mummy What about not just on the street though? I mean, yeah

[00:32:05] And especially, you know Egypt You walk down the street there And of course I've travelled the world And Egyptian tourists as well Yes But Yeah, no, I've never seen I've never seen a mummy I used to get the mummy and the invisible man

[00:32:29] confused when I was a kid Well the invisible man wears bandages often That's why Yes, yes he does And he sleeps in a sarcophagus An invisible sarcophagus He doesn't bother to coat that in bandages He's just like I'll just leave that as an invisible sarcophagus

[00:32:43] If the guy is invisible and you can't see him He might be a mummy, we don't know You know what I'm saying? He also might be a doctor True Like we can't see him Yeah Well, you know this just jumped out to me I mean you were saying

[00:32:56] You Heard the Ghostbusters theme song And immediately thought Ray Parker Jr. is the man To embody this character Yeah And then you tell me that your original Conception of the project was more ghost based It seems like Ghostbusters had a massive influence On Darth Maul Yeah

[00:33:13] So that was really kind of your rosetta stone For the character You know, I've never heard the argument Put like that before but I think Pauline Kale Approached it to an extent Because that was her final review ever Was the Phantom Menace Was it really?

[00:33:34] It was a movie that did her in It was the last one I don't know Yeah What did she give it? I think she gave it five bags of popcorn She had moved to a bags of popcorn Rating system at that point Right

[00:33:48] Yeah, because she was doing the Today show The latter years were a little rough for Pauline Yeah Yeah I'm not a fan of film critics I'm a film critic Oh my God And this is I'm a film critic right here David's a film critic I know Yeah

[00:34:05] You came prepared You're very out of me You don't do it for the critics You do it for the fans Yeah, you've said that a lot I have And in fact if a critic likes your work You are angry It's not even that they're not the intended audience

[00:34:19] They're the opposite of what you want as an audience Yeah No, I will be publicly angry But privately I will I will be so thankful And lavish them with praise and gift Yeah Oh, so there's some pay-all But in order secrets Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:34:38] I'm quite a hypocrite Yeah, right So Ghostbusters Sort of was this turning point for you And you figuring out how to make a Star Wars movie Yeah You had seen Star Wars And then some years later you see Ghostbusters And go, well there are the building blocks

[00:34:56] There's the blueprint Yeah, well I hope you're not accusing me of plagiarism No, no, no, no No, no, no, no All art is homage, of course It's...I think...you know I was disappointed with the lack of ghosts I was disappointed as well

[00:35:09] That I wanted the Phantom Menace to be live As well To be performed live Every time it was shown in a theater Well, of course Mr. Film Critic, there are limitations to that Practical limitations I'm here to poke holes I've thought about it already There would be...

[00:35:27] Like a company of say five different companies Sort of like Rocky Horror Yeah, Town Has Their Own Phantom Menace Who was your Anakin? It's not so ridiculous when you actually just stop to think about it Yeah, but we don't like to stop to think about it

[00:35:40] We're a fast-moving podcast Right Yeah, I wanted it to be live I also...you know There were no songs No songs? That is true Phantom Menace, not a musical No Did you pen songs for it? Did you have like a... I... Trove I tried to Yeah

[00:36:04] I'm a pretty terrible... I've got a terrible sense of smell And for some reason that Impact on my ability to hear music They're all linked, you know The nose, the ears But I had commissioned some songs That I wanted to be in the show That later were released

[00:36:32] Once they'd had the... The associated artists had bought They were originally written for Phantom Menace But then they were released under their own labels Can you reveal any of those songs? You know from years and years before The release of Phantom Menace In some cases

[00:36:50] Gangnam Style was probably the first one Right I think everyone's... That's been a theory floating around And it was originally titled Gungan Style Yes That was the little alteration he made Yeah It was...and the lyrics were in English And they were a lot more racist

[00:37:11] Oh really? Okay The fitting jargon And the racism was a thing that did Carry on through to the... It filtered through It was such a strong element of the movie George heard the song and he was like I like the racism, I'll keep that

[00:37:32] Let me just skim off the music Interesting Interesting You had a lot of creative say in this movie Yes and no Okay Do you want to leave it that? I don't I just want to leave it at that Yes I did and no I didn't Okay

[00:37:56] And I mean what... You know it sounds like you and George Were each coming to play with your own ideas You seemingly had far more ideas A greater number of ideas He had lots of ideas, I'll give him that I'll give him that What's he like? George Lucas

[00:38:12] He is... He's very... He's very tall Okay He's surprisingly tall Very tall man Taller than you? Yeah Substantially Yeah He's... Because you're 6'5? I'm 6'4 George is probably... 7'10? 7'11? I like that The picture is he standing far away from everyone? 7'11? Yeah 7'11 He's...

[00:38:45] I don't know, he's quite active I'm not going to say hyperactive But he had... In the mixing studio He had a basketball hoop And was just constantly playing basketball The entire time Would you ever throw it at your face Like the Great Santini? All the time, yeah

[00:39:06] It was horrible He broke my nose I don't think we're saying anything that isn't known here But George Lucas does a reputation for being one of Hollywood's biggest bad boys I mean, he is... He's a bad boy He's a troublemaker He's a real outsized personality

[00:39:19] He's a gregarious guy Yeah He murdered a first assistant director Really? Apparently Apparently The rumor says Right, we have to... Allegedly Yeah, allegedly He murdered this first assistant For any reason in particular Was it just a show of dominance? Yeah, was it sort of... You know what?

[00:39:40] Set the tone All I'm going to say is He had his reasons Wow Resents Wow So you're coming, you're two big personalities You have a lot of big ideas for the movie How did you work together? Was there tension there? Were you clashing?

[00:39:56] I mean, you know, it seems like a lot of your ideas Ultimately didn't make the final cut So I wonder how much of that was An organic process or a fight Over what ended up making you that Can you repeat the question? Sure I didn't make...

[00:40:11] Did you and George fight a lot? We fight a lot Yeah, we did We did I mean, that was probably the main thing That we did was fight We were constantly thinking of new ways to fight You know, it started out as just like Verbal insults and then

[00:40:28] Insults, like not speaking to each other So insults by Roxy Social insults, right Through somebody else and then What is now called shade We would throw some of that about We would also... And then we would like physically fight You know, we would arm wrestle

[00:40:48] Then we would wrestle, wrestle Or wrestle Sure First you wrestle and then wrestle Wrestle, is that what it is? Well I think they're two separate things You know, wrestling, that's You know, Greco-Roman And then wrestling, that's sort of Formal Oh right, okay, no

[00:41:05] I think we wrestled, then we wrestled Oh fair enough, fair enough Wow, okay Yeah, and sometimes then we'd wrestle again But then, you know And then we'd do other things We'd challenge each other to like dangerous High-speed A car racing The games of chicken

[00:41:20] Yeah, do you play with each other? Yeah And he even Organized a jousting tournament For us one Sunday afternoon Just the two of you No, no, no I mean, well there were other events Sure But ours was the main event Okay And there were 25,000 people there

[00:41:40] All in costume Really? I mean the budget for this thing was just incredible Wow, was it with horses Or were you on motorcycles? It was elephants Oh Because I know it sounds weird How is that gonna work? It did Yeah It did I wouldn't do it again Yeah

[00:41:59] So did you un-elephant him? Un-horse him? I don't know what the word is If they're not on a horse Well we didn't realize that the two elephants Were a couple Who had been together For 45 years That's a great story That is a lovely story Yeah And

[00:42:18] But fortunately they really hated each other So That didn't affect the fight To have made it sort of more brutal And both elephants died And One elephant died and then George killed the other one Because he lost It's a It's in the past

[00:42:38] Yeah, it's in the past now I'm not supposed to talk about it actually Oh fair enough We can cut all that out Cut all that out and just cut that out Oh yeah They'll do that I think we're running out of time, Griff So if there's anything

[00:42:50] Any other questions you wanted to ask Yeah, I mean I guess we're gonna tiptoe into spoiler territory A little bit here But as implied By some of your earlier comments Darth Malt does die In this film That's a statement I was first checking for your response to that

[00:43:12] And it was gonna lead into the question Yeah, that's a statement I'm not saying whether it's an erroneous statement Fair enough, okay You're just putting that out there He does get chopped in half And fall down a chute Yeah All right Do you know what?

[00:43:27] I'm gonna say one word Earthworm Interesting Interesting Yeah So in your mind, Darth Malt falls down that chute For however long Yeah And then slowly It's about a year Did you throw yourself down any chutes in preparation? No, I did afterwards I did afterwards

[00:43:54] I guess what would you... You would call that Post-Piration Yeah I guess I did Perspiration Yeah, I perspired And also I had to prepare these chutes Which were... That was a thing, it took a long time Yeah, it did What do you like to think

[00:44:15] Is Darth Malt's lasting legacy How he's impacted the culture at large I would probably say His greatest gift to culture And you know, broadly, mankind Would be the Beatles Yeah Yeah, we were right about that Yeah Funny we didn't ask you about his involvement with the Beatles

[00:44:41] In this episode Because a lot of people talk about who's the fifth Beatle There's a lot of questions about was it Keith Best Stuart Sutcliffe You know People don't talk about Oh, right, Darth Malt was the first Beatle Yeah He was the first one before the other guys

[00:44:56] And he was the last Beatle too He was also the last Beatle Yeah He was the bookend Beatle Do you want to plug the tick Griffin? Or are we... Oh yeah, speaking of Beatles Oh yeah Oh yeah We were on a show where we play insects

[00:45:12] That's right, yeah Couple of bugs next to me Yeah Yeah, it's called The Tick You play The Tick I play The Tick And you play Arthur I play Arthur, who's a moth man I'm a little moth boy I would say more appropriately probably Yeah

[00:45:31] I don't think he's been part of Mitzfoot yet He's still a moth boy Yeah, and it's out in August August 25th August 25th on Prime Video Yeah It's a great company, Amazon What a great company Yeah Yeah It sounded sarcastic just now It's not, it's great

[00:45:52] No, no, no, no, no, no, no Come on, look, we can Do bits all day Yeah But this is a No Bits podcast And we need to be very serious about this Oh yeah, that sounded really sarcastic And it really is my birthday Yeah, right, no bits

[00:46:05] What's that on the road? No bits, it's really my birthday Happy birthday, man My final question Thank you You're welcome I just wasn't sure if I mentioned anything We've got some birthday greetings going on over here So, sorry My final question, Peter, would be

[00:46:18] To all the mall heads out there The mall rats The Darthys The Darthys, right? Yeah These die-hard Darth fans What would you say to them To sell them on the tick? People who only know you as Darth Maul Why should they watch the tick?

[00:46:34] And try to accept you as another character For the first time I'd be lying if I said that Darth Maul could Recommend something other than Star Wars Episode 1 of the Phantom Menace He's kind of a one-eaty character You're asking the wrong guy Okay Okay

[00:46:59] Do you want to ask just Peter? Yeah, Peter Yes, hello Hi Is there anything you could say to Darth Maul Friends, fans out there, fans and friends Friends of Darth Maul Uh, friends I, uh, I Well Please watch the show Because

[00:47:18] We put a lot into it, haven't we? I don't know I feel like it's been pretty easy to make He's a tired boy, Griffin Newman That's all I know I feel like my favorite part of the show Is how much sleep I get at night Yeah

[00:47:33] And also general body comfort Yeah I Yeah, we Please watch it So our efforts haven't been in vain Yeah It's good though I think it's a very good show I think it's good Made out of literal blood and sweat and tears Yeah Emphasis on the sweat Yeah

[00:47:54] For me, it's more emphasis on my skeleton I'm getting my replacement skeleton this week Oh, thank God That's great And that's Get new bones Yeah Amazon's great about that They break their actors, but they always fix them Yeah, it's good That's nice to know

[00:48:08] Well, thank you so much for being here on the show You're working so much It was an amazing insight into You know the process and the backstory behind Let's say Probably the greatest character in the history of American cinema Oh, please Truly, no, no It's not just cinema

[00:48:22] It's not just cinema It's not just cinema Western pop culture Yeah Sure Story telling I don't even think western Human thought Right, human thought Thank you so much for being here Your welcome so much Thanks to the handful of people who came out to this

[00:48:37] Thanks to everyone who's listening to it later Big thumbs up to this crew Look around you Great show Which direction? Which left, right? Sorry Where are we looking? Happy birthday to Ben Yeah, that's the real reason we're all here today Yeah Happy birthday Thank you

[00:48:56] Thank you so much And as always Ain't big Ain't big Ain't big because you might Someday end up getting to be in episode one as well Yeah Thanks Thank you