Barry star and Saturday Night Live veteran Bill Hader was originally slated to voice the Star Wars robot BB-8. Director JJ Abrams had envisioned a childishly squeaky, funny voice for the robot that accompanies Rey on her adventures in Disney’s trilogy, but the voice didn’t work any further and was ultimately replaced with beeping sounds. Despite this, Abrams wanted to be nice and put Hader’s name in the cast anyway, leading fans to believe that those beeping sounds are coming from Hader’s mouth and not a maniac. When die-hard Star Wars fans ask for Hader’s autograph on various BB-8 items, he has therefore been forced to start refusing.
“You know what it was? I used to sign stuff, and then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB-8 thing and it was three in the morning. I was leaving the Inside Out premiere and then we went to an after-party thing and it was super late and this guy kept his kid up all night. He was like, ‘Go over there so he’ll sign it so I can sell it online.’ I was like, ‘That’s fucked up.’ So now, I just kind of blanket, like, I’m not signing any of this shit.”
Hader then commented on the fact that his name is on the cast of the new films:
“It’s very sweet that J.J. Abrams put my name on it, but I came in and did voice stuff for it that didn’t work.” You can listen to the entire interview here!
