You were born in 1977 a few months after Star Wars hit the theaters. Can you remember what your favorite Star Wars memory is?
The Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I remember waiting in line with my family when I was a little kid. We had pizzas and waited there for what felt like days. We went inside the theater -- the Cinedome in Orange County which was like a stadium-seating kind of theater. I remember sitting down and staring at the big red curtain thinking that people were going to come out onto the stage and perform. I had no idea what to expect. Then the curtain parted and I saw the Twentieth Century Fox logo and heard the trumpets, and I got chills. Darth Vader scared the hell out of me!
Were you the kind of kid who had to have all the Star Wars toys?
I had this great collection of Star Wars toys. For some reason, they had the best selection at Sears, right by the exit door on this one part of the mall. I would run there and try to find who I didn't have, and would be so disappointed when I couldn't find what I was looking for. Then I'd wait and go back the next week looking for the same thing. When you're a kid you don't understand merchandising and stocking shelves. Why isn't it there? It should be there!
What ended up being your favorite Star Wars toy you'd play with?
I'd always play with my X-wing. When Return of the Jedi came out I was big into Luke Skywalker and his black outfit. As terrified of Darth Vader that I was, he was one of my favorite action figures. I guess even at a young age I gravitated to the evil characters.
Well, he wasn't totally bad, there was still good in Vader at the end.
True. [laughs]
Do you still collect Star Wars stuff?
Once I stopped playing with toys as a kid, I hung on to my collection. But I don't really add to it. In addition to Star Wars toys, I also had G.I. Joe and He-man. I never got into the mint-condition action figures collecting side of things. I will admit though that when The Phantom Menace came out, I bought a Darth Maul figure because I just thought he was the coolest. It reminded me of the first time I opened up the package of my Darth Vader figure.
We hear that you're pretty fond of your Master Replica lightsabers...
Whenever I sit in my chair at the office, I grab that lightsaber. It's like my thinking stick. [laughs]
Actually, right when Lucasfilm sent over the Master Replica lightsabers awhile back, I couldn't stop talking about them. At the time I was shooting a movie called Armored with Matt Dillon, Lawrence Fishbourne and Jean Reno. The director overheard me talking about my new lightsaber and he started talking to me about the LA Jedi Knights and how one night he went out to Rancho Park over by Fox Studios and he saw them training. He had a hoodie on and his red Master Replica lightsaber with him, so he walked up to the top of a hill overlooking their practice, and stood there with the hood up and turned on the lightsaber. They all stopped and looked up at him. And then he walked off without saying a word.
What's the back story about the short films you made of the lightsaber duels in the parking garage?
Please tell Mr. Lucas we hope those films didn't offend him! [laughs] It all started awhile back when Tracy Cannnobio from the marketing department at Lucasfilm sent me a poster for the new Indiana Jones film with a note that said she had heard I was a fan. Instead of having my publicist thank her, I picked up the phone and called her myself. We started talking about Star Wars and she offered to send me even more stuff. I said it was totally unnecessary, I was just stoked on getting the poster. A week later, I'm on the set and Russ Cundiff, my business partner at our company Divide Pictures, called to tell me we had a box from Lucasfilm with lightsabers in it!
To give you some insight on how big a fan Russ is: When he was a kid he thought he was Luke Skywalker. So when the two lightsabers came he automatically claimed the Luke Skywalker New Hope lightsaber and I got the Darth Vader lightsaber. Russ then sent me a photo of himself in the darkened office that we share holding the lit up lightsaber. As soon as I got into the office, the Darth Vader lightsaber did not leave my hand. I had it with me in meetings and constantly turn it on and off. I started to play around more and more with the lightsaber and finally said to Russ, "Where's the video camera? Let's just shoot something."
Divide Pictures is a traditional TV, film and digital production company, but we also do little videos just for ourselves. Back in the day, my friends would always make fun of the fact that people viewed me as a celebrity. To them I'm just their buddy, but other people would freak out when they would see me. That's always strange to me. So they would make these videos of me doing the most mundane things like watering my lawn in a tuxedo; or eating Mac and Cheese; or brushing my teeth. So we had this following of people who watched these little videos that we'd make and put them on a small web site. Then we put up the lightsaber videos and got such a huge response for them. But then we got busy and stopped doing them. So when we come back to do them we'll have to do something really big -- like a Seth Green lightsaber duel.
You have no idea how many fans would love to see you and Seth Green smack each other with lightsabers!
We're actually trying to orchestrate a lightsaber battle with Seth Green. Russ and I were at Wizard Con in Los Angeles, and Seth Green was there with his friends from Top Cow and one of their iPhone's went off and its message alert was Darth Vader's lightsaber. So I said that was cool and we started talking about Star Wars, and the philosophy of the Jedi, and bonded over that.
