Anthony Daniels has something to get off his chest. The British actor known mainly for playing C-3PO in the Star Wars franchise feels the Academy hasn’t properly recognized George Lucas for his monumental contributions to the film industry.
Speaking to The Sun, Daniels shared his displeasure by focusing on the Oscars club-like mentality that fails to reward outsiders, saying:
“The Academy can be very snobbish and almost obviously. And George is not a Hollywood person – ‘if you don’t like our gang we’re not going to have you in our gang,’ sort of thing.”
“Really pisses me off that I don’t think George ever won an Oscar for himself, just departments — special effects and all that kind of thing. George deserves more than that.”
Everything Daniels says here is is true. Lucas has never won an Oscar. He was nominated for writing and directing for both American Graffiti and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, though, while the Star Wars franchise itself has won eight Oscars with all of them coming in such categories as Sound and Visual Effects.
That being said, Lucas hasn’t exactly given himself much of a chance to win an Oscar. After all, he’s only directed six films with four of them being Star Wars movies. Not only that, but he’s also almost exclusively been in the Star Wars business for the past 40 years, with an emphasis on the business side. And business has certainly been booming for the director, especially after he sold Lucasfilm to Disney back in 2012 for a cool $4 billion.
But remember, Alfred Hitchcock famously never won an Oscar, while Stanley Kubrick only won one and it was for Visual Effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey. An Oscar doesn’t validate a career and Lucas probably isn’t losing too much sleep over this. Besides, he’ll no doubt receive an honorary Oscar some day.
As for Daniels, he’s grateful to have played the character of C-3PO for so many years. He holds the distinction of having been in every big screen iteration of the franchise including the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but despite this, he would still gladly step aside to let someone else play the reluctant droid.
“There are people wandering around Disney theme parks, dressed in rather better suits than mine. They seem to move a lot more easily,” said Daniels. “I absolutely admit and accept that. And quite right: he is too good of a character, too big of a character, to die with me. And Disney paid a lot of money for him! You know what I mean? They’ve got to get their money back somehow.”
You can catch the actor back in his most iconic role next month, when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker blasts into theaters on December 20th.
Published: Nov 5, 2019 11:33 am