Though the Skywalkers tend to get most of the love and attention from “Star Wars” fans, there was another famous lineage throughout the intergalactic saga that remains just as vital to the narrative… even if it wasn’t all that clear in the beginning. During a recent interview with Variety in celebration of the 20th anniversary re-release of “Revenge of the Sith,” Emperor Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid reflected on his experience playing the big baddie over the course of nearly 40 years, explaining how the character’s importance wasn’t strategized beforehand.
“It wasn’t mapped out at all, really,” he said. “When I first got the part, I had no idea what the world was that I’d be in charge of as the Emperor. So it started off as a big mystery. I had no idea that Palpatine would figure [into the story so heavily].”
Even when George Lucas brought McDiarmid back for “The Phantom Menace” to play Palpatine as a shady, yet-to-be deformed Senator, the actor was still not sure how the dots would connect or how he would continue on in the series even after his death in “Return of the Jedi.” However, in learning more about Palpatine’s backstory, the actor was only further intrigued by this horribly nefarious individual.
“I got the script and realized that he was more than one character,” said McDiarmid of reading “Menace” the first time, “which made it even more fascinating to play — an ordinary, everyday, fairly hypocritical politician with a monster hiding inside his body.”
In this way, McDiarmid was able to tap into what he does best: act.
“He’s a performance,” he said of Palpatine. “He’s only interested in one thing: absolute power. It sounds objective and black and white, but it’s extraordinary. If you think of people who have absolute power or pretty damn near it, you think that’s all they want, really — wealth and to be able to run people.”
They also want to last forever, whether in some physical form or through their ideology being passed down. This is a core theme throughout the multiple films, television shows, video games, and novelizations, which is why McDiarmid wasn’t that shocked to learn Palpatine not only survived his death in “Return of the Jedi,” but also managed to produce offspring, leading to Daisy Ridley’s Rey in the new trilogy produced by Disney. What were the specifics that led to Palpatine reproducing?
“It was up to me to work it out in my head,” McDiarmid told Variety. “There was talk in ‘The Phantom Menace’ about something called midichlorians, which were involved somehow in Anakin’s birth. George didn’t want to go too deeply into that. But we reckoned it was kind of virgin birth, though one ought not to say that because God knows you get all sorts of complications.”
“Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” is currently in theaters for its 20th anniversary re-release from Lucasfilm and Disney.
