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The Lightsabre Interview Toby Philpott
Welcome to
Lightsabre. We have the great pleasure of chatting with the left arm
and tongue of Jabba the Hutt, Dark Crystal and Labyrinth puppeteer – Toby
Philpott. Q -Toby, welcome to Lightsabre. A - Hi, and thanks for inviting me
to talk about some of the film work I did back in the 1980s. Q – You've worked
on a large number of films, from Little Shop of Horrors to Company of Wolves,
Labyrinth to Dark Crystal, yet you are probably most fondly remembered for
your work inside Jabba the Hutt on Return of the Jedi. How do you feel
about that? A
– I feel
fine about it. I can't tell you how proud I am, and how lucky I feel, to have
been involved in something which has literally become part of modern culture.
Q – Being inside
the Jabba puppet, the worlds largest animatronic at the time, must have been
quite an experience. What was the average working day like? A – After the period of
fittings, and a brief practice, we found ourselves arriving onto a very
busy set, and climbing inside Jabba through a hole underneath. From then on,
Dave and I were alone (well, we had Mike Edmonds in there too, whenever the
tail was in the shot!) and almost cut off from the mayhem on the set. We had
headsets, so we could talk to the rest of the team (operating the eyes by
radio control, and so on). We could also hear Richard Marquand's
instructions, requests, and advice. Dave Barclay did the right arm and
operated the mouth, and spoke for Jabba, delivering the lines in English for
the actors. We always worked Jabba as a unified being, an actor, which meant
we were continuously practicing our co-ordination and expressiveness. Apart
from tea-breaks and lunch, we stayed inside all day (8:30 – 6.00).
While we were shooting we were the main character in the scenes, so it was
quite intense pressure to get it right. Q - Tell us
something of your career. How did you begin in entertainment and what
led you to where you are today? A – After I dropped out of school –
I went on the road for a while. I did a lot of physical jobs, on fairgrounds,
archaeology sites, as well as the usual lowlife jobs washing dishes, etc in
music clubs and restaurants. When hitching around Mexico I started to perform
in the markets and squares, both to make money and friends. I juggled, walked
on my hands, did magic and fire-eating, made a sock puppet, and so on. When I got back to the UK I found that the Fringe Theatre
of the 70s had a niche for physical skills – all actors were learning that
new set of tools as theatre broke out from the old-fashioned proscenium arch
theatre, into the streets. Even straight theatre had gone for participation,
working in the round, etc, so it felt like a very creative and exciting time.
I found work both teaching what I knew, studying new stuff, and performing.
Demystifying circus skills was my main focus. Q – The team that created Jabba, right down from
the original sketches to the construction crew and your fellow puppeteers
inside Jabba, must have worked hard and cohesively to make the whole thing
work. How much of a challenge was that? A - The guys who built him would probably have loved to have
worked him, too, but were needed on the set to repair and maintain Jabba,
operate the finer details of the expressions (eyes, grimaces, breathing etc)
and give us feedback on the performance and capabilities of the creature.
Dave, Mike and I had all worked on Dark Crystal so we had the full Henson
training in bringing creatures to life with teams of operators. So, sure it
was a challenge, but quite familiar work to us by then. And, as you can
imagine, extremely satisfying – especially to be doing the star of the scenes
shot on our set…and he must have looked good because he got, oh I dunno, ten minutes of screen time, maybe. That's a lot in
a Lucas film. Q – What is it like to be part of
the Star Wars phenomenon? A- I had no idea quite how big it was, until I accepted invites to fan conventions. Of course, I knew the films were well-received, and profitable, but I really didn't get the scale of it until I got on the Web in about 1999. I started with a webpage, did a bit of Googling around, and realised just what was going on. Some of the actors probably spend more time touring, talking, and signing than acting these days. Of course, puppeteers seem more like Special Effects guys than actors, and Jabba could use from 3-6 operators, but it is a compliment to our work that people don't even think about that. I meet people (now that cgi is used so much) who can't believe he was a real live 'actor' on the set…
Q – We often hear
fascinating stories from the sets of the movies, and I'm
sure your experience inside Jabba was no different. Do you have any
funny stories from back in 1982? A – Well, they may
sound funny now, but when you're filming they are just a panic. All we could
see was a grainy 'security camera' shot of Jabba on tiny monitors hanging on
our chests…which made stuff hard. Dave told me he had to put his hand
(Jabba's Right Hand) on Leia's shoulder, but heard her say (quite calmly)
"That’s not my shoulder!" I did the left hand, so I got to hold the hookah,
hit C3PO, and eat the frog. The frog you see swimming in the bowl was a real
and rare creature, but the one I had to handle was, of course, a rubber one.
You have to understand that the crew had made up a bucket of gunk to put in
Jabba's mouth (for the drool, and such) – in fact the last of their team to
arrive in the morning (according to John Coppinger)
got that gloop job for the day… Horrible, slippery
stuff. After the first rehearsal, with a dry frog, I had to try to hold onto
this slippery thing with my oversize three-fingered glove, and put it in the
mouth. Dave would then chew it, while I switched my right hand from tilting
the head forward, to going inside the tongue, to lick the lips. On one take I
didn't get the frog right into the mouth, but left a dangling leg, so when
Dave chewed it flailed around in distress…I tried to tuck it further into the
mouth, but couldn't….I heard "CUT!" Apparently the frog
squirming around like that looked too distressing and disgusting. I have to
ask, how can anything Jabba does be TOO
disgusting?
When we had Leia in the alcove near the Han in the
carbon, I had to menace her with the tongue (my right hand is inside the
tongue). We did a couple of takes. Then I heard Mr Marquand in my headset,
asking me to try to reach the tongue further out, and really try to lick her.
On the next take I did just that, but heard a stifled gasp, and some laughter,
and "CUT!" We did it again, but with a little less
stretching. Only much later I was told I had stuck that horrible, gloop-covered tongue right in Carrie Fisher's ear.
I have never confirmed that, or seen the out-take. I
always hope it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but you can never tell on film
sets. People wind you up all the time. It helps alleviate the boredom and
stress (which alternate). Since I have re-met some of the guys we have
refreshed each other's memories, but I try not to steal their good
stories! Mike Edmonds was often inside with me and Dave, operating
Jabba's tail, and he kept us laughing all the time. I am about to meet up
with him again at Signatopia in August (haven't
seen him since filming Labyrinth!) so I may get a few new stories for next
time. But I already stole one of Dave's so I should leave it that you have to
meet, or talk to, each of us to get all the different
viewpoints. At Celebration 3 they got seven of us from that set on
a forum, and Warwick Davis MC'd the show and got us
to re-enact where we were, what we could see and hear, what we had to do. It
was amusing and enlightening, even to us! Q – How did you find the late
Richard Marquand to work with? And, of course, George Lucas? A – You
have had a glimpse of how we related to Richard Marquand on set. He had
an incredibly complicated set and crew to manage, and then a giant,
belligerent slug as well. We did ask him not to break Jabba up into parts,
and talk to us as individuals, but to always address Jabba simply as another
actor. Once we knew what the character had to do, of course, we (as a team)
would discuss it on another radio channel, or (occasionally) meet
face-to-face to figure something out. He knew less about puppets than
actors (but I had just finished a film directed by Frank Oz and Jim Henson,
where puppets had the main focus, of course). On a set with Harrison Ford and
Carrie Fisher we were still really just a detail, but he treated us with
respect, I have to say - and got a pretty good performance out of us, and
onto film. Respect to him! George was definitely around on occasion, and people out
on the set knew when he was there, but we were pretty oblivious to his
presence, in our own little world, and we didn't socialise, or get to
see the rushes, so I can't say a lot about Mr Lucas. He is quite a private
person, and on the rare occasions we met on the set I just listened. He knows
exactly what he wants - and dedicates a lot of energy to getting it that way.
Q – What would you change about
your Star Wars experience if you could go back and do it again? A – Oh, let's see. I'd try to
smuggle a camera on set (NOT!) and/or hang onto all my script pages and call
sheets. I would have got involved a little earlier in the convention
area, as I think that (since Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter) the peak may
have been a while ago. There is still an enormous interest, of course, but
the two groups of three films belong to different generations – I am proud to
have worked on one of the classic three. Oh, and there remain one or two
shots I'd have liked to have tried to do again...get them just right...
Q – What are your
feelings on the digital Jabba's of the Special Editions, the DVD and The
Phantom Menace? Do you feel they have improved on the original
animatronic, or has something been lost in the move from clay and rubber to
pixels? A – I think something has been lost, but all tools have
their uses. The hyperreal look of cg appeals to the younger generation, used
to computer game imagery, but it looks just slightly wrong to my eye. But
some of the kids don't like the rubbery puppet look. I still think that a
careful mix of all available resources is the best route, but if I was an
actor I would certainly prefer a real 'actor' to play off, rather than
improvise in front of a green screen. Of course, George keeps tweaking the
films, so our performance may one day get replaced, or at least enhanced,
with cg, but I accept that. I didn't like the Jabba chatting to Han Solo in
the Special Edition, but in Phantom Menace the look isn't too bad, and they
improve all the time. You'll notice that Jabba isn't interacting with real
people, though, so there's still quite a long way to go.
Q – Your work on
Dark Crystal and Labyrinth are stand-out performances in your puppeteer
career. Jim Henson was as much a visionary as Lucas is.
What was working for Jim like? A – I could go on for hours. He
was a mild-mannered millionaire, who seemed a little surprised to have ended
up that way. He ploughed money back into his creative projects, and possibly
funded most of the puppeteers of London for a while. I was lucky enough to be
chosen to be on his personal crew (each main Muppet performer had two or
three support people to operate eyes, the other hand, or whatever. I got to
work on Jen and The Ritual Master alongside Jim (often jammed in his armpit).
I never saw him lose patience or raise his voice (it helps to have a good
Assistant Director with a megaphone). He got extreme loyalty and respect from
the crew, and if we hit 6 o'clock and hadn't quite got a shot, but didn't
want to go into another hour (cost and unions) he could get us all to do a
few extra minutes just to get the shot, and get it right. Everyone loved him,
and working for him. Q - What does the future hold for you? A – That's hard to say, as I
stopped performing (more or less). I work in my local library (first steady
job I ever had) and have got the job of supporting both the staff machines
and public internet access PCs. That's about 60 staff Pcs
in 20 buildings around the city, and 220 public PCs. I have learned a 21st
century skill (not bad for a man approaching 60) which has got me into web
publishing, convention appearances, online teaching and learning, etc. So
computers have been good to me, but I don't have the talent or training to
get work in films using them. With no pension scheme or savings to speak of I
will have to work until I drop (like both my parents) so what happens when
the library retire me I don't really know. I'd like to write more. I could
help run the circus office I guess. I have done a little work towards a
mentalist act (magic with that psychic twist) which I thought might not prove
too strenuous, and could take advantage of my age, as an image. Of course, if
all else fails, you may see the World's Oldest Juggler, busking on a street
near you! I really don't know. It is not as if I planned these last 40
years! The universe has been quite kind to me so far…there may be a few
surprises yet… Q – A quick question about our site, Lightsabre. Any comments? A – I was very impressed when
I found your site. As a freelance creative I always have respect for people's
ability to create channels for their own work. The film business was a lucky
break for me, among many years of enjoyable show-biz slog - but I always felt
at the mercy of the whims of the industry. The Web is a whole new realm, and
I love being here, and coming across such a professional attitude as
yours (I always have time for dedicated people). Q - It's been a great interview,
and thanks for being our guest on Lightsabre. Just one final question.
After a drunken night Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors and Jabba
the Hutt are playing spin the bottle. It lands on Jabba, and he chooses
to kiss Audrey. Who would survive the encounter? A – Well it might depend just how big Audrey had got. The whole final sequence we shot never made it into the released film (they decided they needed a happy ending!) but that big Audrey could have eaten Jabba for breakfast. Having said that, a plant has only so many resources. Neither Audrey nor Jabba seem capable of moving far on their own, but Jabba has a crew, and also some hi-tech toys, so I suspect he would come out on top (but that is a horrible image!) And as a job? My tongue in Jabba, versus Audrey's tongue? It doesn't bear thinking about… |
