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Before Daniel’s acting journey

Anthony Daniels was born on February 21^st 1946 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Before Daniels started pursing his journey in acting, he studied law for two years because acting was not deemed as a safe career in England during the 60’s. Two years were enough to convince Daniels that law was not his destined vocation, so for the next three years he studied acting at the Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance.

How it all begun

In the same year that he left college, 1974, Daniels received the prestigious Carlton Hobbs BBC Radio Award which landed him a place in the BBC Drama Repertory Company. Following hundreds of productions, he moved into theatre and joined the National Theatre of Great Britain at The Young Vic. Whilst working there he got an invitation from George Lucas, who had a great interest in Daniel’s acting and mime skills, to discuss Lucas’ upcoming sci-fi film.  Daniels on the other hand, was not enticed by the sci-fi world, so he turned down the interview. Fortunately, his agent persuaded him to have a meeting with Lucas. Ralph McQuarrie’s concept painting of “C-3PO” grabbed Daniels’ interest, and after he had read the script he was excited that he was chosen for this role.

Anthony Daniels as “C-3PO” 

Star Wars

It took six whole months to complete the gold costume that now everybody recognises as “C-3PO”. The iconic costume consists of seventeen different pieces. Despite Daniels being covered in plaster to make a mould of his body, the gold suit did not fit him perfectly. What made the shoot even more difficult for Daniels was the cold temperature in the desert scenes and the scorching heat at the Elstree studio. In addition to that, Daniels essentially had to talk to himself since “R2D2”’s sounds were added later on by Ben Burtt. Lucas initially wanted to replace “C-3PO”’s vocals with someone who sounded more American but eventually he realised that nothing sounded as good as the original so he asked Daniels to dub his own character voice on the edited film.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) saw an immense success which consequently lead to the sequels and prequels. After some adjustments had been made to the “C-3PO” suit, Daniels continued filming Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI – The Return of the Jedi (1983). For the first film of the prequel trilogy Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), the shiny gold suit of “C-3PO” was replaced by a “naked” puppet (“My parts are showing? Oh, my goodness, oh!”), a prototype version of the protocol droid, so Daniels had to do the voice work off camera for his character. However, for Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) wanted to be more involved in the method of characterisation which is why he did not only voice his character, but he also took control of the “naked C-3PO” puppet . Daniels returned to his usual gold costume for Episode III – The Revenge of the Sith (2005), Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017).

Daniels has been involved in many of the Star Wars spin offs, became the only member of the original Star Wars trilogy cast to have voiced his character in the Star Wars radio serial, hosted The Making of Star Wars (1977), Star Wars Connections (2002) and the Science of Star Wars (2005). He has hosted and narrated various symphonic events such as Star Wars in Concert in its American, European and Japanese tours. He even conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops as “C-3PO”.

Anthony Daniels has voiced “C-3PO” for the following:

• The Muppet Show (Season 4, Episode 17: The Stars of Star Wars – 1980)
• Sesame Street (Episodes 1364 and 1396 – 1980)
• Star Wars: Droids (1984)
• Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (1990)
• Star Wars: Clone Wars (2004-2005)
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2011)
• Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace (2011)
• Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out (2012)
• Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (2013-2014)
• Star Wars Rebels (2014)
• Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales (2015

Other Works

Despite “C-3PO” being a major and notable character for Daniels, his career is not limited to the Star Wars series. He has made other appearances on TV, such as the British sitcoms Square Deal (1988-1989), Three Up, Two Down (1985-1989) and the more serious police procedural drama Prime Suspect (1991-2006). Additionally, Daniels has voiced Legolas in the Ralph Baksi animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (1978).

Daniels has worked as producer/creative designer on The Westminster Experience, The Guinness Taste Sensation, Singapore’s Volcanoland, Bahrain’s Magic Island, Dubai’s Encounter Zone and The London Dungeon. Daniels is currently living in London, England and is a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center.