How many actors does it take to play Darth Vader? Well, there’s David Prowse, the original physical Vader in the original trilogy. Then there’s James Earl Jones providing his iconic voice. In Revenge of the Sith and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden Christensen played him. But a crucial part of Vader’s character is his labored, mechanical breathing. And that breathing came courtesy of sound design legend Ben Burtt. In a recent interview with Burt in The Hollywood Reporter, ahead of his being honored by the Locarno Film Festival with the Vision Award Ticinomoda, Burtt confirmed that was indeed his breathing you hear as Darth Vader. Here’s what he had to say:
Yes, that’s me breathing. It came about because the script described Darth Vader as having a respirator, some kind of breath mask with a life support system. That’s about as far as the description went. I went to a dive shop here in Marin County where they sold equipment and gave evening lessons. After the lessons were over, there were all these scuba tanks with regulators just lying around the pool. I went around and just recorded different ones breathing through them at different rates. I had a little tiny microphone that I could stuff inside the valve, so it was a very magnified recording of this mechanical opening and closing.
Burtt also confirmed that he slowed the recording down a bit, which became the signature Vader breathing. Later in the editing of A New Hope, they cut the breathing to be in rhythm with James Earl Jones’ speech. Originally, there were additional noises that went along with Vader’s breathing. Aside from the respirator, there were mechanical sounds when Vader was moving, to make him seem more robotic. “More machine now than man.” They deemed all of it too distracting, so they jettisoned everything else except for the breathing. Probably a good call.
Burtt also confirmed that R2-D2’s iconic noises took a long time to figure out. He recorded children and babies originally, hoping they could provide the answer, once remixed electronically. But small kids are notoriously hard to get a performance out of. So Ben Burtt just wound up doing it himself, with a synthesizer and a keyboard. Ben Burtt combined those electronic sounds with his own voice. This gives Burtt the honor of playing both Vader and Artoo, at least in part. As if his Star Wars resume wasn’t already stacked! Aside from George Lucas himself and John Williams, we can think of few who have contributed to the saga more than Ben Burtt.