Emperor Palpatine’s voice – cool, crisp and commanding – belonged to the New Zealand-born actor Clive Revill. Photo / Getty Images
Emperor Palpatine’s voice – cool, crisp and commanding – belonged to the New Zealand-born actor Clive Revill. Photo / Getty Images
His voice can be heard for only a minute in The Empire Strikes Back but it provided the first draft of a character that would be a mainstay of the franchise for decades.
It was a minute that changed the course of the title="">Star Wars franchise. In The Empire Strikes Back, the now-celebrated 1980 sequel, audiences were treated to the first on-camera sighting of Emperor Palpatine.
After receiving only a glancing mention in the first movie, he could have looked and sounded like anything. A human. A Wookiee. A droid. A turtle. There was, instead, a disfigured, robed face – portrayed by actor Marjorie Eaton – that terrified fans and etched the character into Star Wars lore.
But Palpatine’s voice – cool, crisp and commanding – belonged to New Zealand-born Clive Revill, who in about 60 seconds set the stage for one of the most feared and infamous characters in science fiction. Revill died March 11 in Sherman Oaks, California, his daughter Kate Revill said Thursday. The cause, she said, was complications of dementia. He was 94.
Palpatine’s appearance, however brief, is pivotal. In the conversation with Darth Vader, it is established that Vader, already an iconic villain, has a boss – one whom Vader himself fears. Additionally, Palpatine recognises Luke Skywalker as a true threat.
In just a few lines, Revill established Palpatine as a cold, dominant figure.
When the original trilogy was rereleased in 2004, his voice was replaced by that of Ian McDiarmid, who played Palpatine in subsequent Star Wars films, starting with Return of the Jedi (1983). But in various iterations of Palpatine since the original – including the franchise films, the video game Fortnite and even Lego re-enactments – the character’s voice is built on Revill’s work.
“Those voices are all influenced by this first example,” said Greg Iwinski, a writer on the animated Star Wars series Young Jedi Adventures. “That was 45 years ago. That’s the importance of that legacy. He was the first guy to do it.”
The small choices Revill made in introducing Palpatine – for example, making him emotionless with a touch of regality – were anything but. Revill provided a first draft of a character that would be built on for decades. His performance projected power without raising his voice, while making it believable that Darth Vader could fear him.
“It was frightening and powerful and also reassuring in a way,” said Christopher Tramantana, an actor and an instructor at New York University. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, Vader can be beaten‘. There’s something more powerful than him.”
“Also,” he said, “it was just such a cool voice.”
Keith Powell, a Star Wars fan and an actor best known for his work on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, said in an email that Revill’s voice was distinct and clear “while still somehow sending a chill down my spine”.
“How did he do that? I still don’t know,” Powell said.
Revill’s involvement in The Empire Strikes Back came about after he received a call from the film’s director Irvin Kershner. The pair had previously worked together on the 1966 film A Fine Madness. By then, Revill, who grew up intending to become an accountant, was a veteran actor. He had several Broadway credits to his name and had been nominated twice for a Tony Award: in 1961 for Irma La Douce! and in 1963 for Oliver! He was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film Avanti! (1972).
Clive Revill was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film Avanti! Photo / Getty Images
During the production of The Empire Strikes Back, Kershner invited Revill to a recording studio in Los Angeles.
“I’ve got a line here that I want you to think about because it’s got to be the right sort of thing,” Revill recalled Kershner saying in an interview at a 2017 fan event. “I said, ‘Okay, fine’. And he gave me a piece of paper and I said, ‘Irv, what do you want me to do with this?’ And he said, ‘Think about it’.”
The line, now often quoted in pop culture, was, “There is a great disturbance in the Force”. Revill said that it took him several tries to get the read right – each one progressively deeper and more deliberate.
Revill never expressed bitterness about being replaced as Palpatine.
“I was the original Emperor but they wanted continuity with the later movies,” he told The Oklahoman in 2015.
Revill is on the list of Star Wars performers who made an indelible mark on the franchise, and pop culture generally, but didn’t become household names in part because their faces were not visible to audiences. It includes Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, Han Solo’s Wookiee sidekick, and Jeremy Bulloch, who originated the role of the masked bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Palpatine wasn’t Revill’s only contribution to the Star Wars universe. In 1993, he lent his voice to the video game Star Wars: X Wing. He also returned to the franchise almost two decades later to voice multiple characters for the 2011 video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Clive Selsby Revill was born April 18, 1930, in Wellington. In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a granddaughter.
Revill’s acting career began in 1950, shortly after he left Rongotai College in Wellington. Laurence Olivier encouraged him to pursue an acting career and Revill moved to London and studied at the Old Vic Theatre for two years with the help of a government grant.
His first professional job was on Broadway: a 1952 production of Mr Pickwick, based on the Charles Dickens novel, before he moved back to England, where he worked steadily in television, film and theatre. His television credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5 and Murphy Brown.
He worked often as a voice actor for video games and in cartoons. Arguably his most famous role – other than Palpatine – was as the voice of Alfred in Batman: The Animated Series, alongside Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, who voiced the Joker. He also voiced characters in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Alvin & the Chipmunks.
It was Star Wars, however, that brought Revill the most fame and led him to occasionally attend fan conventions. In the interview with The Oklahoman, he described interactions with fans waiting to greet him: “They come up to me, and I tell them to get close and shut their eyes.”
Then, Revill said, he would do the voice.
“I say, ‘There’s a great disturbance in the Force’. People turn white, and one nearly fainted!”
