We all know at this stage that Star Wars is completely shrouded in secrecy. Anybody who steps on to a Star Wars set as part of the Star Wars cast is expected to protect every aspect of the best movies and best TV series in the galaxy far, far away as if they’re the nuclear codes.
This isn’t entirely restricted to the new movies, though, with the desire for secrecy stretching right back through the Star Wars movies in order all the way back to the early days in the ’70s and ’80s. In fact, Darth Vader actor Dave Prowse got in trouble during the production of Empire Strikes Back.
Prowse explained to SciFiNow that he got a call from a UK newspaper journalist fishing for information about the future of the best science fiction movies after the original Star Wars became a monster success in 1977. Despite playing one of the best Star Wars characters, Prowse knew nothing, thanks to the very secretive way script pages were delivered.
He said: “What they used to do is they used to send you your pages by motorbike from the studios and you signed for them when you got the pages, and then you had to learn your lines overnight and then go back the following day to deliver your lines, as it were – and it went on like this all the way through Empire and all the way through Jedi. I only knew the night before what was in the scene that I was doing the following day, so I knew nothing about the movie whatsoever.”
However, this didn’t stop that newspaper running a piece claiming they had an “exclusive interview” with Prowse, suggesting that Darth Vader would be killed off. “They blew their top; they thought I was the biggest shit in the world. I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t have a clue and if they even thought about it they’d realize that there was no way that I could have known was going on.”
Prowse said he worked under the assumption that someone else from the set had been feeding information to the media, but confessed it was a “very, very awkward situation” for him. Even the Sith aren’t immune from studio detectives, it seems.
Prowse played Vader’s physical form throughout the original trilogy of Star Wars movies and said the role had “given me international stardom”. He was a regular on the convention circuit until he passed away in 2020 at the age of 85.
For more on Prowse, find out how he almost played one of the best James Bond villains and had a hand in training Superman. He had an amazing career on screen, alongside embodying one of the best Star Wars villains.
Now, read why we think Rey deserves a new Star Wars movie.