Disclosure: I was provided an all expense paid trip to cover the #VeryBadDayEvent and the #DisneyInHomeEvent which included Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion. However, all opinions are my own.#StarWarsRebels
Let me tell you, my family is so excited about Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion. We’ve been watching clips and previews. While in LA, I was not only able to attend a screening of the movie but also was able to chat with some of the cast.
Now, just in case you have no clue what I’m talking about, start here:
Stay tuned for my thoughts on the movie… coming soon!
In the meantime, anyone a fan of Freddie Prinze Jr.? Or how about Dave Filoni? I was able to sit down and chat with both of them after we saw the screening of Star Wars Rebels: Spark of the Rebellion.
Freddie is the voice of Kanan and Dave is the Director as well as voice of Storm Trooper #1.
When I think about the interview, one of the things that stands out to me is just how passionate they both were about this project. Actually all of the cast seemed really passionate about their roles. I love seeing that. Probably more so because I was talking with fellow Star Wars fans.
Here are some of my favorite moments from the interview.
It was interesting to find out that the cast did not know that they were auditioning for anything to do with Star Wars. Dave is really interested in Wolves so he told everyone they were auditioning for “The Wolf Pack.” Here’s what Freddie said regarding The Wolf Pack:
Freddie: I went in and I saw some Character breakdowns on the wall at Disney and I looked at them and I’m thinking, these guys are either ripping off Star Wars real bad or this is a Star Wars thing.
And there was another girl in the Waiting Room and she was reading for Tia’s Character and she looked super nervous. And when she came out of the room, it was like this is definitely Star Wars. So I asked them and I said is this bleeping Star Wars? And then he (Dave) kind of sits back, he sits back and he kind of like nods his head all cool and I was like All right, give me a second. I’ve got to turn around and compose myself and then get prepared. Instead of a Light Sabre, I had a Sun Sword, which Thunder the Barbarian had from Hanna Barbera. That’s, remember that?
But they ripped off Star Wars. They even had their Wookie. They had Klan, right? That was the Wookie that Princess Ariel, Princess Leah… My ’80s Cartoon Knowledge is on point.
I’m just a few years older than Freddie so I knew all about that ’80s cartoon knowledge. I was following along right with him.
One of the questions for Dave was how the casting process went. Here’s what he said:
Dave: Oh it went so fast. We made this Show very quick because we wanted to film in the time prior to Episode 7. You know, that’s gonna be this thunderous amazing thing … but it was gonna take time to produce so we wanted to get an Animated Series up ahead to kind of get kids up and going with Star Wars and in this new world and so it was one of the big challenges when we were sold. So it was gonna be very hard to cast quickly and my feelings was that you just, you know the right people when you hear them, when you see them. So we met everybody when they came in and we just brought in a group of people and pretty much without fail Simon Kinberg, Greg Weisman and I always would give high marks to the same people.
… we’ve been so lucky that creatively, we’ve all collaborated really well, Lucas Film. And we’ve all pretty much agreed on the decisions. It’s really rare … so we would pick our top people and we were like Wow, I agree, I heard he is really good. I like to judge things, you can be really talented but if you’re not a good person, if you’re not gonna be collaborative, then I don’t want to work with you. Talent’s not gonna outweigh that. I think that’s the important thing for young people. If you’re really talented and you’re arrogant, I don’t want to work with you. I want somebody who’s hard working. You know, right?
The entire interview was great. You can read some of my fellow bloggers interview posts to see what their favorite highlights were as well. Follow hashtags #DisneyInHomeEvent and #StarWarsRebels
Tune in tonight at 9pm ET to the premiere Star Wars Rebels event on the Disney channel and the series premiere 9pm ET on 10/13 on Disney XD.
Photos courtesy of Louise Bishop
Stay tuned for more interviews coming soon!
