50 Roles for 50 Actors: Dream casting the Star Wars saga

Dream casting the Star Wars saga: Andy Serkis as Greedo

Andy Serkis is the patron saint of motion-captured acting. His work as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies convinced a lot of skeptics that the technique had merit, and he’s been killing it with performances in films like King Kong (as King Kong) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (as super-intelligent chimpanzee Caesar) ever since.

There’s a lot to be said for filming movie creatures the old-fashioned way, but if Serkis was involved, we could trust that the new ways would be handled tastefully. A computer-generated version of Greedo, the alien bounty hunter who encounters Han Solo in Star Wars, could be a treat with Serkis as the man behind the curtain. Plus, given the iconic voice he provided for Gollum, I bet he’d be able to come up with a memorable, uniquely alien voice for Greedo. Hell, I’d bet money he could do a good Chewbacca while he was at it. If Stevens needed help with the Wookie’s voice, Serkis could provide dub support.

As for how the encounter between Han and Greedo would play out in our remake, Han would shoot Greedo before the bounty hunter could pull his gun. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be again.

Next: Old, bearded, and wise: a winning combination