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From: "Ian J. Ball" <ijball@mac.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Alec Guiness's Thoughts on Appearing in STAR WARS
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:36:24 -0700
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On 3/19/25 6:14 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
> 
>> Prior to accepting the role of Obi-wan (Ben) Kenobi, Sir Alec Guinness wrote
>> the following to a friend:
> 
>>      I have been offered a movie (20th Cent. Fox) which
>>      I may accept, if they come up with proper money.
>>      London and N. Africa, starting in mid-March. Science
>>      fiction - which gives me pause - but is to be directed
>>      by Paul [sic] Lucas who did AMERICAN GRAFFITI,
>>      which makes me feel I should. Big part. Fairy-tale
>>      rubbish but could be interesting perhaps.
> 
>> After he arrived on set, he did not change his opinion that the movie was
>> "rubbish":
> 
>>      ...new rubbish dialogue reaches me every
>>      other day on wadges of pink paper - and none of
>>      it makes my character clear or even bearable. I
>>      just think, thankfully, of the lovely bread, which
>>      will help me keep going until next April even if
>>      YAHOO [a play in which Guinness played satirist
>>      Jonathan Swift] collapses in a week ... I must off
>>      to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet - and
>>      he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen
>>      Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can't be
>>      right) Ford. Ellison (? - No!) - well, a rangy, languid
>>      young man who is probably intelligent and amusing.
>>      But oh, God, they make me feel ninety - and treat
>>      me as if I was 106. - Oh, Harrison Ford - ever
>>      heard of him?
> 
> Dude! You saw American Graffiti directed by Paul Lucas! Ellison Ford had
> a small role in the movie!
> 
>> Later on in the filming, Guinness wrote:
> 
>>      "Apart from the money, I regret having embarked
>>      on the film. I like them well enough, but it's not an
>>      acting job, the dialogue - which is lamentable - keeps
>>      being changed and only slightly improved, and I find
>>      myself old and out of touch with the young"
> 
> To be fair, everybody hates that the script is never finished.
> 
>> He did have some nice things to say about the completed film:
> 
>>      "It's a pretty staggering film as spectacle, and
>>      technically brilliant. Exciting, very noisy and warm-
>>      hearted. The battle scenes at the end go on for
>>      five minutes too long, I feel, and some of the dialogue
>>      is excruciating and much of it is lost in noise, but
>>      it remains a vivid experience"
> 
>> However, it was not an experience he liked to talk about afterwards:
> 
>>      "I shrivel up every time someone mentions
>>      STAR WARS to me."
> 
> Clark Gable despised making Gone With the Wind, and thought It Happened
> One Night was utter shite.

I saw the latter, in the 1990s(?), and did not care for it.

> Uh, raise your hand if you want to hear an actor's opinion on what makes
> a movie entertaining. Anybody? Don't all get up at once.

Yeah, a lot of actors get their own stuff wrong. Musicians too! (There's 
a doc on Yes where the bandmembers clearly didn't understand how great 
an album "Relayer" was!!)