Alan Tudyk is EVERYWHERE these days — even if we don’t always see him. The world fell in love with his character WASH on the criminally short-lived series Firefly and its followup movie Serenity. He then went on to star in a number of fan-favorite series, including his own CON MAN, one of the most successful streaming series ever, now found on Comic-Con HQ. But perhaps his most prolific work happened in productions where we didn’t see his face… He’s been a mainstay in a long string of hit animated films from Walt Disney, including Zootopia, Frozen, and this season’s Moana. His biggest “voice” character though, is now onscreen in Lucasfilm’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, where he plays the scene-stealing droid K-2S0. Get a behind-the-scenes look at K-2SO in this featurette with Alan Tudyk.
Here, Alan Tudyk fills us in on his experience with K-2S0.
Question: What can you tell us about K-2S0?
Alan Tudyk: Yeah, well he is a security droid and he was formerly of the empire and he has been liberated by Diego Lunas’ character, Cassian and reprogrammed and his memory wiped left him a little bit corrupted. [laughs] He’s just a little glitchy in moments. Nothing huge, but he’s just very particular and it makes him an original, which I think people are really gonna like about him. Especially in the Star Wars world where there have been such original droids already.
Question: What was it like walking on stilts to play the character?
Alan Tudky: The first thing that I was introduced to with K-2 was the stilts. Because he is taller than everyone. He’s 7’1” and so I was outfitted with some stilts that Island made. They were actually — they’re feet that people who — amputees use to replace their lost limbs. So they’re like the highest end — highest end prosthetics that you can get, attached to ski boots and they had thought this whole thing out, as far as how — like so that my foot only bends where the foot is at the bottom and not where in the middle where you wouldn’t want to see — it would look odd for the robot’s leg to bend.
Question: Was it hard to learn to walk on stilts?
Alan Tudyk: I had used some off-off Broadway stilts prior to this, so these were a lot easier in the little clown show that my friend and I produced, called That Beautiful Laugh, a few years ago. And so these were high tech and was fairly easy to get used to. It’s almost more like a new pair of shoes where you know, a couple of days you’re like ah, I kind of got a blister there, you know, just it rubs here, but after a day, it becomes part of you. Because your bones fuse together in a weird way, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t had any problems since.
Question: How did you audition for this part?
Alan Tudky: When I auditioned I did the voice like three different ways and we were in agreement that because he was formerly of the Empire, it made sense to have a — I mean the main characteristic of the voice difference for me is that he’s English. And within the universe of the Star Wars Universe, the Empire — the bad guys tend to have English accents. So K-2 still retained his English accent from that time and so that was something we agreed on before.
Question: When we saw you at Wondercon, you couldn’t really discuss the part. Was that hard?
Alan Tudky: Yeah, it’s something that you kind of you’re kind straining your brain like can I say this? I don’t know, it’s tricky. You don’t want to because you don’t want to give anything away because people are so invested in the Star Wars Universe. Nothing gets by the fans and you can say a lot with a little, so the fear is that you’ll say too much.
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It’s WASH, not Cash.