Star Wars: Episode III
Interviewed by Anwar Brett
BBC
May, 2005


He's the blackest of the black - it's fun!

When not terrorising the universe, Scots-born McDiarmid spends much
of his time working in the theatre and from 1990 to 2002 he was the
Joint Artistic Director of the Almeida Theatre in London. When he
hasn't been treading the boards, he's appeared in Gorky Park, Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels and Sleepy Hollow. But it's as the biggest baddie
of them all - the Emperor in the Star Wars franchise - that film
fans will remember him for. He has played Palpatine in Star Wars
Episodes l, ll, lll and VI.

How do you approach so dark and Satanic a character as Chancellor
Palpatine?

Well, for those who didn't see Return Of The Jedi, I just played a
straightforward politician - charming, smiling, out for the good of
the universe. But underneath that there lurks a monster. So it was
very easy to build the character - I just looked in the newspapers.
Did the make up you wore during Palpatine's transformation to Darth
Sidious help?

It always helps. It certainly helps to be a monster in monstrous
make up. But George was very interesting when we started The Phantom
Menace: he told me I should think of my eyes as Palpatine's contact
lenses, which was a great thing to say to an actor. So my face was
actually Sidious' mask, and then when I put on the mask I became
him. That kind of schizophrenia is always fun to play, and in this
film it's great because one explodes through the other. In this film
he's worse than the Devil and certainly worse than Darth Vader, whom
I think comes across as more sympathetic than people might imagine.
What's the best part of playing a character who is the darkest of
the dark?

He is the blackest of the black. It's fun, you're not going to get a
part like that every day. I like the fact that he doesn't really
have any psychological workings. He was spawned in Hell in a way, as
Siths are apparently. They can't get better. Except as you see in
the movie he goes to the opera. So his one redeemable feature is
that he's a patron of the arts.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith is released in UK
cinemas on Thursday 19th May 2005.