Why More 'Star Wars' Actors Don't Become Stars

HughPickens.com writes: When you become an actor, landing a role in a movie as big as Star Wars may seem like a dream come true. But Tatiana Siegel and Borys Kit report at The Hollywood Reporter that six movies in, the Star Wars franchise has only spawned one megastar: Harrison Ford, unusual for a series of this magnitude. Neither Ewan McGregor nor Liam Neeson was helped by the franchise and the list of acting careers that never took off is even longer, from original stars Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to Jake Lloyd (young Anakin Skywalker) and most notably Hayden Christensen, whose star was on the rise when he nabbed 2002's Attack of the Clones. Even Natalie Portman, who already had a hot career before Episodes I-III, admitted she struggled after the exposure. "Everyone thought I was a horrible actress," says Portman. "I was in the biggest-grossing movie of the decade, and no director wanted to work with me."

So what's the problem? "When you sign up for this, you're signing your life away, and you're keeping yourself from any other franchises out there," says an agent whose client is one of the stars of Episode VII. "They will not let you be in another franchise. They're going to be cranking out a new movie every year. These actors never get to read the script before signing on. They don't even know which [subsequent] one they are in. And then they become known for that role, and it's hard to see them in [another] kind of movie." Still, agents keep pursuing roles in the upcoming films even though newcomers can only command a meager $65,000 to $125,000 for Episode VII. "It secures all involved a place in film history," says agent Sarah Fargo, "and guarantees a huge global audience, enhancing an actor's marketability."

Comments

Contradiction in article summary

[JoeyRox]

The first section of the summary states that actors have trouble finding other roles after staring in the Star Wars franchise but then concludes with an agent saying actors should accept the low-paying Star Wars roles because it "...guarantees a huge global audience, enhancing an actor's marketability."

Re:Contradiction in article summary

[crgrace]

It's not a contradiction at all. The agent works for the agent's benefit primarily. The vast, vast majority of actors never land a role where the agent can take a significant cut. So, to them, it's like a "bird in the hand vs. two in the bush" type of thing. They can get a few bucks out of the actor, who cares if their long-term prospects are stunted. Fact is, they most likely wouldn't get anywhere anyway. Remember, the agent works for the agent. There is always another good-looking young actor coming along to represent.

To say Mark Hamill (for instance) would have been more successful without being in Star Wars is ridiculous. While he didn't hit it big like Harrison Ford, he certainly had a career that was more successful than 99% of people who try to act.

original used non-union actors

[Rockoon]

Lucas and Spielberg made the decision to use non-union actors in the first movie because the union demanded certain types of intro-credits which was believed would spoil the feel of the movie.

So the rest of the industry informally blacklisted the actors. The only actor to survive the blacklist was Harrison Ford because Spielberg also used him in Indiana Jones, and the industry wasn't going to balk at a guy that could bring in hundreds of millions for every movie he was involved in. Even Billy Dee Williams, who already had made a rather big name for himself, couldn't survive the blacklist.

Re:Don't worry actors

[Dutch Gun]

Lucas was fantastic at world building, but absolutely horrible at directing actors, and even worse at writing emotionally engaging characters. He happened to luck out with Harrison Ford, who pretty much carried the weight of the series through his own gravitas and made everyone else look good as well. There were also other places he lucked out, like with Anthony Daniels. C3PO was originally envisioned as a smooth-talking, oily (not literally), used-car-salesman type character, but Daniels had an enormous influence on the character that he fundamentally changed the role.

If you listen to some "behind the scenes" from Star Wars, you'll hear the actors talking about how Lucas never really understood how to motivate or even talk to actors. He'd give them the lines, tell them where to stand, and just expect them to "do their thing". What's painfully obvious is that he couldn't really tell good dialogue from bad, or good character writing from bad. It's really too bad he didn't collaborate with and trust someone to override some of the worst aspects of the first trilogy - mainly the awkward love affair and the questionable motivations of Anakin. Critically, he ended up breaking that fundamental maxim of movies time after time in terms of character development: "Show, don't tell."

crap direction

[dryo]

The problem here is not the franchise, but the director. George Lucas has an uncanny ability to get the worst possible performances out of good actors. Look no further than Samuel L. Jackson, who's a talented individual, but came off as stiff and wooden in the Star Wars movies. It's well known that George Lucas doesn't direct actors at all, and often shoots just a single take of the performance. Then he invests massive time and energy into the visual effects, making the CG artists re-do their work multiple times for questionable reasons. He's more of a technology evangelist than a filmmaker.

He also has a warehouse somewhere...

[denzacar]

...full of Star Wars toys.

That guy he plays in that Amazing Stories episode - that's him in real life + acting career. 268 credits on imdb.

Anyway... It was mentioned in one of Kevin Smith's "Fatman on Batman" podcasts.
Hamill asked if he could have one of every toys they were going to make. He thought it would be kinda cool.
Imagine that, you know. You're in a movie, and they make a toy that's you in a movie... Crazy, I know!
Nobody gave it a second thought, so they included that bit in his contract.

One of every Star Wars toys. Ever.

And Anthony Daniels

[SuperKendall]

He really deserves a lot of credit - look at Jar Jar.

That could EASILY have been how C3P0 went if it were not for Daniels understanding how to play a comedic role properly.