James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, retires from the franchise
By Meg Dowell
James Earl Jones — who has played Darth Vader in various projects for decades — says his time playing the iconic Star Wars character may be coming to an end.
In a larger Vanity Fair piece published earlier about Respeecher’s ability to use audio recordings to essentially recreate things like Darth Vader’s exact voice from 1977, it was revealed that the actor plans to step away from the Star Wars role he has embodied for so long. But we haven’t heard the last of that voice. We’ll be hearing it again for quite some time.
Not only is Jones planning to retire from the role — he has also given legal permission for AI recreations of his voice to be used in future projects. In-universe, this means Darth Vader will pretty much always sound the way you’d expect him to sound. Others have voiced the character before, but now, perhaps, they won’t have to.
That’s right — the actor has given the official OK for his voice to be used again. So there’s no disrespect in creators using it to voice Darth Vader later on even if the actor himself isn’t involved in the project at all. In a way, it’s a sort of honor. His voice will continue to live on even though he’s taking a step back from the recording studio.
Even though he won’t actively play the role of Darth Vader in the future, he’ll be remembered as the voice of the most iconic villain in pop culture history for decades to come. There’s no voice quite like his, and the actor will remain part of that character for even longer than that thanks to modern miracles of technology!
Next. John Williams, 90, is ready to compose his final film score. dark
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