Actor James Earl Jones, 91, is leaving his role as Darth Vader after 40 years of voicing the legendary villain. The time has come for the voices of some heritage performers to be digitally reproduced using A.I., much as Star Wars fans are used to seeing artificially de-aged figures like Mark Hamill in The Book of Boba Fett. Vanity Fair has reported that not only has Jones withdrawn but that he has “signed off” on the use of his archived voice recordings to keep Vader alive. Fans of Disney+’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series noted that Darth Vader’s voice sounded significantly different in the show despite his large role.
That’s because a Ukrainian firm called Respeecher was contracted by Lucasfilm to recreate new lines of language for Vader to utilise in the show. The studio had previously collaborated with the corporation to record Luke Skywalker’s voice for The Book of Boba Fett, but the situation with Obi-Wan Kenobi deteriorated rapidly as the battle continued. They were still working on Vader’s voice when the war broke out, but they pressed on to complete the job. Matthew Wood, Lucasfilm’s experienced supervising sound editor, was on the receiving end.
Wood has worked with Jones a dozen times over the past decade, most recently when Jones recorded a single line of speech for 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. An actor “said he was looking at winding down this specific role,” he says. The obvious follow-up question is, “So, how do we proceed?” According to the article, “the actor signed permission on using his archive voice recordings to keep Vader alive and vital even through artificial means” because of the access to the A.I. technology he provided Jones with Respeecher’s work.
Jones famously overcame a stuttering problem as a kid to become one of the most memorable voices in movie history, and not only as Vader.
Older audiences will also recall his performance as Mufasa in The Lion King. His impressive filmography spans six decades, beginning with Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove (1964). In addition to his film career, he has won a Tony Award for his work on Broadway in both The Great White Hope and Fences. After the success of the book, he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his performance in the film version of The Great White Hope, released in 1970. His most recent Broadway appearance was in Cicely Tyson and D.L. Coburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Gin Game. Jones’s retirement as Vader’s voice actor confirms what many fans suspected about his advancing age.