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S01E19: Scour with a (Somewhat) Real Darth Vader
41 Plays1 year ago
Ever wonder what it's like to play Darth Vader in an actual Lucasfilm/Disney production? Join Bob's brother Jim Gerard and find out!
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Transcript
Unexpected Guest in Darth Vader Armor
00:00:00
Speaker
We're talking with a man in Darth Vader's armor, just maybe not the man you're thinking of.
Star Wars Cleaning Crew Theme
00:00:05
Speaker
Grab your droids and brooms, it's a Star Wars cleaning crew.
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back to The
Star Wars News & Skeleton Crew Trailer
00:00:11
Speaker
Cleaning Crew. You know, it's been a pretty big week in Star Wars news. We've had a couple of big announcements come out. We've had the Star Wars skeleton crew, not to be confused with the cleaning crew. ah We've had the trailer for that come out.
Introduction of Special Guest Jim Girard
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm going to share my thoughts on that at the end of this episode. But first, wanted to bring in our special
Jim Girard's Background & Disney Experience
00:00:30
Speaker
guest. You know, I had completely forgotten, but I actually have not just a friend, but my brother.
00:00:39
Speaker
who has been, well, here. Let's just turn it over to my brother Jim Girard. All right. Well, let's get into it. How did you get into it? How how did you actually wind up? How did I get into it?
00:00:53
Speaker
Do you want me to give you a little back story first? Sure. I mean, should I go back to my days on
Performing as Darth Vader at Disney
00:01:01
Speaker
NASA as a aerospace education specialist? I mean, just- We only got 15 minutes. Just remember, we only got 15 minutes, but go for it. No worries.
00:01:11
Speaker
um As an aerospace education specialist in NASA, i I did a lot of stuff in front of people and so I was always looking for ways to enhance my my ability to present in front of a crowd. and my um ah mindy um My daughter ah had a job working out at Disney as as a performer.
00:01:33
Speaker
And I used to brag on her when I would go out to the teacher groups that I would visit and maybe spoil a little of of the magic on exactly what she did. And one teacher said, she must be learning some wonderful communication skills doing that. And I said, that's it.
00:01:52
Speaker
So I auditioned and was accepted as a performer at Walt Disney World in Florida, and I was a part-time performer. I worked on weekends there, and during the week I went to my NASA job, sometimes out at the Kennedy Space Center, sometimes on the road visiting schools. There were times when I would be driving home on Friday afternoon from a school in Georgia so that I could be at Walt Disney World on Saturday morning.
00:02:22
Speaker
ah to perform. and There is, of course, when you're performing, you are gauged by your height as to what you can do. And so there is only a certain number of opportunities that that you have. Now, again, I don't want to spoil the magic too much. Let's just say that in the same way that Padme had her many handmaidens who right who would double up for her to do things when she wasn't able to or decoys. There you go. um There were opportunities that we had to put on the Sith armor of Darth Vader. Now, when I first got there, the stipulation was six foot four inches was the was the lower end. And I'm six two. Yeah, you and I are tall, but not quite that tall. We're not quite that tall. But then I got a call in and they said, hey, Lucasfilm has just given us the go-ahead to lower our height limit to 6'2 for parades. Because during a parade, you're not standing next to the the character and you know it's it's easier to to get by. And so I had the opportunity
00:03:39
Speaker
to put on that armor and parade down in the stars and motor cars parade at Disney Hollywood Studios.
Parade Experience as Darth Vader
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. So what are we, when is that we're talking, what was it like 15 years ago? Maybe this would have been about 15 years ago. Yes. Yes. Uh, that parade is currently at Disney land, Paris.
00:03:59
Speaker
By the way, if you want to see it, they took the cars and they took an old, I think it was an old, like 42 Ford and they dressed it up like a land speeder with the, with the jet engines on the back end and the paint job and everything, and the windshield and Luke and Leah were in the the car and I walked in front of it with a couple of stormtroopers.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So that was that was the way it was set up. Did you have a lightsaber? I did not have a lightsaber. Okay, I think there was I think there was one on the belt, but but I didn't get it. It was on the belt, but okay. Yeah, yes, I think the stormtroopers had rifles that they carry the the normal blasters and then Luke and Leah were just in
Feeling & Experience of Wearing Vader Suit
00:04:45
Speaker
the car. They were just wave wave to people. The putting on the suit was really something because the more you put on, the more you felt like you were really doing something special.
00:04:59
Speaker
yeah And I think two two things in particular. One one was the cod piece. Uh, you know, we don't normally wear that, but it is a part of the suit. And the other part was the shoulders of the Pauldrons, the Pauldrons on the show. That's basically one, one piece that goes over your head. Okay. And then the helmet was a, was a little interesting because there was like ah ah a face piece that strapped onto the front.
00:05:30
Speaker
yeah And then the samurai part of the helmet, there there were like PVC rings on top of the the headpiece and inside the helmet, so they would fit down inside each other. Does that make sense? Yeah, it was the two parts like we see in Return of the Jedi.
00:05:47
Speaker
where Luke kind of takes the hat off and then he pulls the mask off. Right, right. right but yeah But you kind of had these two donuts of PVC on the top so that they would interlock. and They would interlock it and hold and hold it in place. and now Keep that in mind. Oh, and and the other thing is that the um the boots, the jack boots that you wore, had like two and a half, three inch heels on them.
00:06:09
Speaker
right yeah little bit They had big thick soap. So it's like, you put that on and you start humming. dan du du dun good ah dun ta it's like That music was going through my head the whole the whole time that that I was doing this. It was just an incredible rush to go out. And I remember one thing, the the show specialist,
00:06:32
Speaker
came up to evaluate what I was doing and said, you know, you're you're doing a good job. and and But I want you to be more menacing. you know Don't be afraid to get up to people. And I said, well, I don't want to make kids cry. He said, you can make kids cry.
00:06:48
Speaker
That's okay. You have of the clearance. yeah The first time I i ever had a Disney person say, it's all right to make a kid cry. you know So Darth Vader would walk down the street and at certain times in the music, he'd stop and then walk over to the side and just stand menacingly over some young kid until they looked up with tears in their eyes and then walk away with the flourish of the cape and continue on.
00:07:15
Speaker
so That was always fun. So you did succeed in making kids cry. Occasionally, yes, but that wasn't the goal, but that was an outcome that you knew you were hitting your mark. Yeah, that's great. Did you ever get any lip from people? I have been known to give Kylo Ren a little bit of lip whenever I run into him at Galaxy's Edge. I just can't stand him.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, that's one of the differences too, between doing a um a parade versus para right this is a or even a show, you know, when when ah you're walking through Galaxy's Edge and you see them come walking down the street and they're interacting with the crowd, they're looking for that interaction. yeah But in the parade, there's music going on, and there's people going on, and you're going back and forth, and there's so many people around. There there really wasn't ah too much opportunity to get a feedback from from the audience. You know, got a lot of, a lot of, us well, I did do, one parade was on Father's Day, and ah I had my wife bring my kids out.
00:08:22
Speaker
to watch. I think it was the one time that they came out to watch. and so i've got They got some some pictures of me on the parade route, but ah I remember during that day, I got a lot of, Happy Father's Day. yeah Happy Father's Day. Yeah, for sure. yeah it's like Yeah, my kids are right behind me there. yeah so Right. Not the ones in the land speeder, but the real kids on the street.
00:08:45
Speaker
So um what ah one of the funny things that that happened though, along the parade route, as I said, I'd be menacing in front of the crowd and then turn with a flourish back to the parade route. And during one of those turns, I felt the helmet come off its ring and spin around. So now I could not see because the helmet was sideways.
00:09:11
Speaker
yeah And I very quickly turned my head inside to get it back centered and then slowly turned so that it would stay forward. And I thought, do I reach up and try to set this on? No, that would look awful for a Sith Lord to be sitting there trying to put his helmet on.
00:09:32
Speaker
So I just spent the rest of the parade just very like like my neck was in a neck brace. I never moved my neck. You know, if I, if I turned, I turned the whole thing side to side so that that helmet but and I felt it wobble a little bit, but I'm sure nobody could see it wobbling because of the movement of marching and everything like that. But I thought, Oh, holy cow. What do I do? I didn't want to walk off the parade route.
00:10:01
Speaker
Because then once you walk off the parade route, then you're done. You stayed in character. You did the right thing. That was good. Stayed in character. I tried to. I tried to. So that was that was a lot of fun. um How is the heat in the armor like compared to maybe other, you know, characters you've decoyed for? I don't remember it being that hot. Of course, you always are going to sweat. That's, you know, Florida in the summer. Right.
00:10:26
Speaker
As I said, we all we're talking Father's Day, which is what, May something? And so- That's in June, Jim. Father's Day is in June pretty much every year. Yeah. Mother's Day, May. I'm only 68. I don't know. I don't know. It was hot and and you sweat. but yeah There are no fans or anything. There is there is a light panel in the front, y know but that doesn't do anything. It's hot, but hey, that's just part of the game. yeah It's just what you do.
Transition from Vader to Character Attendant
00:10:55
Speaker
So how long did you ah play Darth Vader in the parade? That was only for that one summer.
00:11:01
Speaker
And then because I had to go, because of my NASA work, I had to change my status and lost my performance status. And so I i was able to to return as what we called character attendants. These are the people that you see with the characters. Now that enabled me though, I took part in a lot of the Star Wars weekend's activities.
00:11:27
Speaker
Mm-hmm that we had and So that was always fun because we get we get in the in the morning we go to the toy box which is what they call the place where the all the performers now the entertainment gathers together and They would give a rundown of what's going on today who who the stars were that were going to be there things that were going on and And then we have an opportunity to to say if we had any guests in the park, any visitors that we're bringing in the park so that people would know that you know that we had family there. And one of the things I'd always do is I'd say, how many of you were at opening day back in 1977 of the first Star Wars film? Any hands? Am I the only one? Really?
00:12:15
Speaker
Okay, I just wanted to make sure I put out my street cred there, you know, that that I wasn't just some casual guy doing this, but that I was a longtime friend and fan of this franchise.
Host's Reflections on Brother's Role
00:12:31
Speaker
So that's right, ladies and gentlemen, my very own brother played Darth Vader in an officially Lucasfilm sanctioned Disney production.
Review of Skeleton Crew Trailer
00:12:43
Speaker
Pretty amazing.
00:12:44
Speaker
Meanwhile, a few announcements like I said that came out, especially over the D23 Disney conference that happened this last weekend. First off, we got to see the first trailer for Star Wars Skeleton Crew. It looks great. I'm very excited about it. They advertised it as Goonies in Space and it sure looks like that's what it's going to be like. My only quibble was that I thought some of the early scenes in the trailer where they are setting up where the kids live in kind of this suburban neighborhood to me it felt a little bit too much like real life suburban america
00:13:17
Speaker
i know you've got to have that balance in star wars of feeling recognizable but also like something you've never seen before early It feels to me like they swayed just a little bit too much to the left on that, but I'm not quibbling. I'm excited about this. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and it'll probably work in context. That's also coming out earlier than we thought it was. They were saying December 21st. I think now they're saying December 9th and that's great.
00:13:41
Speaker
I did manage to catch a couple of bootleg videos of both the Andor Season 2 sizzle reel and the Mandalorian and Grogu movie that they're filming right now.
New Millennium Falcon Ride Announcement
00:13:53
Speaker
Those both look fantastic. Speaking of the Mandalorian and Grogu, that's the other big announcement is we are finally getting a new mission at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge on the Millennium Falcon ride where we'll get to ride with the Mandalorian and Grogu.
00:14:08
Speaker
So excited to get something new there. I think it's
Conclusion & Listener Engagement
00:14:11
Speaker
going to make it great. That's it for this week on the Star Wars Cleaning Crew. Hope you got your kitchens clean. We'll see you next time. In the meantime, please tell your friends, hit like, subscribe, write us a review, grab your droids and prunes. We'll see you next time. May the force be with you.
00:14:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah!