Actor Tom Kane has been voicing Star Wars characters for over a decade, landing his first Star Wars gig in 1996 on LucasArts' X-wing Vs. TIE Fighter video game. Since then, he's voiced characters for scores of other Star Wars games, commercials, and even a Yoda toy or two.
More recently, Tom was cast in three voice roles for the new Clone Wars series, including Yoda (continuing his voice work for the character from the original Clone Wars 2-D animated series), Admiral Yularen, and the serial-style announcer who opens each episode. We asked Tom a few questions about his work on the new series, and about the first episode, "Ambush", in particular.
What was it like inheriting the legendary characterization of Yoda for The Clone Wars?
Like lots of people my age, Star Wars was a life changing event. I remember my relationship to movies changed that day as it did for a lot of people. I'm a huge fan of Yoda and to find myself caretaking that voice is still sort of amazing to me. You do kind of shake your head and ask, 'How did this happen?' There are some jobs you do for the money and some you do for the love of it, and this is definitely one of those. It's been an honor.
How would you say Yoda's role has changed between the original Clone Wars series and the new?
Well there's obviously more dialog in these because they're much bigger episodes and there's more action. It's hard to compare them because the other ones were so small in terms of time, you know, they were just a few minutes long. Obviously, as an actor, it gives us more opportunity to tell a story and to bring a character to life.
There's a scene in the first episode where Yoda asks the three clones in his command to take off their helmets so he can relate to each of them individually...
They're really trying to explore the idea that the clones may be genetically identical but not alike in any other way. So I think that's something that's going to hit the fans and make them very happy to see fleshed out.
In A New Hope, we never get a chance to actually hear the Admiral Yularen character speak (he's the officer dressed in white sitting in Tarkin's briefing room scene). How did you come up with his characterization?
It was Dave's [Filoni] directing. He said he wanted him to sound like an Imperial officer, so we went with sort of the British colonel approach modeled on the old British Empire. You know, Yularen's a good guy at this point, so we didn't dip into the stereotype of the blustery colonel -- we wanted someone who is respected by Yoda and clone troopers and is a legit military commander.
Do you see him making an easy transition from the Republic to the Empire?
No. I think Yularen is being portrayed as one of those guys that was going along just because he was an officer. I can't imagine he went along very happily or willingly. I suppose a good analogy would be General Rommel in World War II. He was fighting for the bad guys but even his opponent, [Lieutenant-General] Montgomery, had a great amount of respect for him, almost a fondness for him. He had made the point that Rommel may have worn the uniform, but he wasn't a Nazi. Yularen is a military officer and he's following orders, but I don't think he would [become part of the Empire] with any great sense of relish.
The announcer voice which opens each episode feels very affected in a 1940s movie serial kind of way. Was this a request of the production or did you come up with that yourself?
This came straight from George. That's the genesis of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and was what he grew up on. The western serials and the radio dramas and TV shows that impressed him as a young man is what he wanted to bring to the movies. It's a voice that I've done and do quite often for commercials and stuff -- we call it the "March of Time" voice. I think it will work far better in a television series than it may have in the movie -- I think people were expecting the standard crawl after the "A long time ago..." and may not have known what to make of it. I think it will be much more accepted as a vehicle for television.
