Why George Lucas Tried Really, Really Hard Not To Cast Anthony Daniels As C-3PO

C-3PO is much more than the bungling protocol droid that he appears to be. Sure, he can speak to moisture vaporators and program binary loadlifters, but the droid's actions speak louder than the posh British wailing we hear onscreen. It's a voice that Star Wars creator George Lucas originally didn't want. But his decision to stick with Anthony Daniels as C-3PO adds depth to the story and a lore that Lucas couldn't have foreseen.

In August 1977, Lucas sat down with "Rolling Stone" to talk about his blockbuster "Star Wars: A New Hope." This first film in his series made $120 million just four months after release. In the interview, Lucas said Threepio was supposed to sound much different. He wanted an American voice to balance the cast's accents. That all changed when Anthony Daniels tried out.

Lucas conceived of C-3PO with an "oily" and "used-car dealerish" voice. He had written Threepio as a con man from the Bronx, not a fussy British servant. After sitting through 30 pre-shoot test readings, Lucas thought no one could match how Daniels got into the role. Daniels, meanwhile, didn't plan to audition. His agent told him, "Don't be stupid." During the audition, however, Daniels connected with a painting of C-3PO, noting the character's vulnerability. The decision to go with Daniels, who presented a superior and almost snobby portrayal of C-3PO, changed the Millennium Falcon crew's dynamic and ultimately the "Star Wars" universe.

After filming "A New Hope," Lucas was apparently not satisfied with C-3PO. Mark Hamill said in the 2018 documentary "The Director and the Jedi" that after Lucas watched the footage, he didn't like C-3PO's voice. Daniels said that if Lucas had told him he wanted Threepio to sound differently, he would've approached it differently. Lucas auditioned more than 100 voiceover actors after the shoot. However, he ultimately stuck with Daniels.

The decision may have given more nuance to Threepio's character. Hamill said about the voice, "It's all part and parcel of the organic character." When you look at C-3PO's actions in Star Wars through this lens, Hamill may be on to something. The voice alters your sense of his intentions. On the surface, the droid flees, whines, and pleads through every crisis. But beneath the performance, C-3PO's actions may reveal motivation that defies his apparent programming.

Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO out of scrap parts and programmed the droid for diplomacy tasks. Yet, in "Empire Strikes Back," while escaping TIE fighters, C-3PO calculates the crew's chance of survival at 3,720 to one. It's a precise number calmly delivered by a droid who is designed to follow orders but panics under pressure. Forbes called the odds "suspiciously precise" and Scientific American questioned how a calculation like that could be made. Maybe C-3PO did what the car salesman George Lucas originally wrote for the role would do. Maybe a terrified C-3PO reached for an alarmingly precise number to manipulate Han into steering away from the asteroid field. Except the conman recognized the con. Han flew straight in.

The oily conman that Lucas first wrote into the script is coded into C-3PO's character. It's hidden under a golden facade and Daniels' subservient-seeming British voice, which Hamill describes as having "Upstairs, Downstairs" champagne-serving etiquette. There's more going on under the hood that's hard to see until watch C-3PO in action.

Consider how often C-3PO breaks protocol with a lie or misdirection. When we first meet C-3PO, the droid says, "There'll be no escape for the princess this time." After landing on Tatooine and meeting Luke, C-3PO says when asked who the princess is, "I'm afraid I'm not quite sure, sir. I think she was a passenger on our last voyage." C-3PO might be programmed to not recognize her but could also be strategically misleading Luke to either protect the princess or keep him away from another dangerous mission.

The droid also lied to stormtroopers at least twice on the Death Star and even went along with pretending to be an Ewok deity in "Return of the Jedi." All these are signs of a smartly written conman hiding in plain sight and a cunning strategist masked by Daniels' voice. It's a posh delivery now considered the Core Worlds accent, which is how the upper class speaks in the "Star Wars" universe. C-3PO might be one of the most underrated droids in "Star Wars," once you realize there are several layers of character operating under that metal framing. This kind of depth of lore and storytelling may never have taken shape if Lucas had not cast Anthony Daniels as C-3PO.