James Earl Jones Retires as Darth Vader, Signs Off Rights to Use His Voice for AI Recreation
thewrap.comVanity Fair reporting that the 91-year-old actor has agreed to allow a Ukrainian AI company to replicate his voice for future “Star Wars” titles.
In Vanity Fair’s new report published on Friday, sound artists at Lucasfilm and the Ukrainian AI speech company Respeecher discussed how Jones’ voice was recreated digitally for the recently released Disney+ series “Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi,” which saw prequel trilogy stars Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen return as Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker.
Though Christensen wore Vader’s infamous suit in the series, it was Respeecher that provided his voice during his duels with his former master and the Sith Inquisitor Reva Sevander. “He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this particular character,” Lucasfilm Supervising Sound Editor Matthew Wood said. “So how do we move forward?” Wood said that Jones served as a guide as Respeecher used dozens of recordings of his voice to teach their AI program to replicate his voice with the menace that he had when he first played Darth Vader back in 1977, with recordings from Jones’ recent performances in the “Star Wars” films “Rogue One” and “The Rise of Skywalker” as well.
The same program had already been used in another Disney+ series, “The Book of Boba Fett,” to recreate Mark Hamill’s younger voice as Luke Skywalker.Jones’ family told Lucasfilm and Respeecher that he was pleased with the results and gave them permission to continue recreating his voice in future projects.
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