James Earl Jones Made Just $7,000 as Darth Vader in FirstStar Wars. Back Then, 'I Thought That Was Good Money'

Mar. 15, 2025

James Earl Jones (left); Darth Vader in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (right).Photo:Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Lucasfilm

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty; Lucasfilm

James Earl Jones’ most iconic voice role earned the veteran actor surprisingly little in 1977.

Jones,who died on Monday, Sept. 9 at 93, voiced Darth Vader in the originalStar Warsfilm, playing a major role in making the Dark Lord of the Sith one of Hollywood’s most infamous villains. But his contribution to the part didn’t come until after the cameras finished rolling, when writer/directorGeorge Lucasrealized the voice of the lateDavid Prowse, who wore the costume on set, wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.

“George wanted, pardon the expression, a dark voice. So he hires a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters. And that’s the voice. That’s me,” Jones said in an interview for theAmerican Film Institutein 2009. “I lucked out, from all these so-called handicaps, for a job that paid $7,000! And I thought that was good money. And I got to be a voice on a movie.”

Darth Vader in ‘Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980).Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm

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In 1995, Jones toldConan O’Brienit took him only two and a half hours to record Vader’s dialogue for the firstStar Warsmovie, later retitledStar Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. Jones also told O’Brien that Orson Welles was Lucas' first choice to voice Vader, but he thought Welles' voice would be too recognizable.

“We didn’t know what we had,”Jones told O’Brien. “In the second episode, we spent a whole day trying to figure out what we did right.”

When it came time to makeStar Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas, 80, brought Jones back to voice Vader. This time, Jones considered doing something a little different, but Lucas reminded Jones that if something’s not broken, you don’t fix it.

“He said, ‘We don’t know what we did right, so let’s just try what we did.’ Naturally, I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, more subtle, more psychologically oriented,” Jones told theAFIof Lucas. “And he said, ‘No, no. What we’re finding out is you need to keep his voice on a very narrow band of inflection because he ain’t human, really.' ”

“If he gets too expressive, he seems too human,” Jones told O’Brien. That would explain why Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) believed Vader was “more machine now than man.”

The Empire Strikes Backalso featured Jones' most famous line of dialogue: “No, I am your father.” In the 2004 documentaryStar Wars: Empire of Dreams, Jones recalled thinking this would be a lie.

“I said to myself, ‘He’s lying. I wonder how they’re going to play that lie out,’ " Jones said.

James Earl Jones in 2015.Mike Pont/WireImage

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Jones went uncredited forStar WarsandThe Empire Strikes Back, and it wasn’t until 1983’sStar Wars - Episode VI: Return to the Jedithat his name appeared in the credits. He continued voicing the character for television shows, video games and movies.

Darth Vader was just one of countless memorable roles in Jones’ career. He also voiced Mufasa in Disney’sThe Lion Kingand portrayed Terence Mann inField of Dreams. Jones earned an Oscar nomination forThe Great White Hope(1970) and received an honorary Oscar in 2012. Jones also won three Tony Awards, a Grammy Award and three Emmy Awards, making him a member of theEGOT club.

source: people.com