Sam Witwer's most famous Star Wars roles are Darth Maul and Galen Marek/"Starkiller." However, the actor also does an impressive Palpatine impression, one that he's gotten to use in some official media. 5 Nick Jameson Voiced Palpatine In Some Early Animation & Video Games While Palpatine's return in The Rise Of Skywalker has drawn much ire, even the harshest critics don't have anything bad to say about McDiarmid. He holds himself back for the first two and a half films with the charm of a serpentine and sinister flavor this makes his full-tilt turn towards glorious camp in Revenge Of The Sith's latter half all the more satisfying. His Return Of The Jedi turn is iconic enough, but it's the prequels that solidified McDiarmid as Alpha and Omega of Palpatine performers.
McDiarmid was only 38 when he first played the Emperor, which meant he was the perfect age to reprise a younger version of the role in the Prequel Trilogy. To quote the man himself, "I looked at the face, and the voice followed." Lucas originally wanted McDiarmid to replicate Revill's flat intonations, but he was quickly won over by McDiarmid's raspy, echoing drawl and inhuman cackle, a perfect complement to his character's wrinkled, toad-like appearance. Indeed, he delivered the most crucial part of Palpatine's presence: his voice. To say it worked out is an understatement McDiarmid fits the role like a glove.
The pair had been impressed by McDiarmid's stage performance in Seduced, especially with how he managed to act through prosthetics. The original choice was Alan Webb, but when he bowed out due to a nasty flu, Lucas and director Richard Marquand chose McDiarmid as the replacement. Lucas' decision to end Star Wars as a trilogy necessitated the Emperor making his in-person debut in the finale, Return Of The Jedi. However, Star Wars fans would argue that the Scottish actor has played the Devil many more times before and after, thanks to his (for better or worse) career-defining role as The Emperor. Ian McDiarmid voiced Satan in a 1992 audio adaptation of Paradise Lost. 6 Ian McDiarmid Embodies The Character Of Palpatine In A Way Few Actors Manage While this Palpatine prototype has some of the trademarks down-the dissonance between his physical frailty and great power, to the uncertainty if he's even human-it's still very much a test run.
The Emperor's first line "there is a great disturbance in the Force" also makes it clear that he is as much a student of the dark side as his disciple.įor this brief scene, the Emperor was portrayed by a heavily made-up Marjorie Eaton (the eyes of a Chimpanzee superimposed on her face) with a voice dubbed by Clive Revill, his delivery devoid of emotion or even inflection. The Emperor is the first character whom Darth Vader shows reverence towards and Vader is visibly dwarfed by his Master's holographic visage. George Lucas originally conceived of Palpatine as a weak-willed puppet king controlled by his advisors and the Empire's military brass, as an analog for how Lucas viewed the relationship between Richard Nixon and the US Military-Industrial complex. This interpretation survived long enough to make it into Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars novelization, but Palpatine's brief appearance in Empire showed how quickly plans can change. It wasn't until The Empire Strikes Back that the Emperor makes his first, semi-physical appearance. The Emperor receives only a few offhand mentions in Star Wars, and said mentions indicate little beyond the obvious that the Empire has a ruler.
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