According to Vanity Fair, on September 23, James Earl Jones, the notoriously deep voice of Darth Vadar, signed over rights to the character’s voice. Jones gave away the archives of his voice acting work to a Ukrainian company, Respeecher, which is working on using AI in order to recreate his voice for future Star Wars films and shows.
Supervising Sound Editor of Respeecher Matthew Wood said his main intention was to “keep Vader alive,” which intrinsically involved maintaining Jones’ voice for the character. He’s voiced Darth Vadar since 1977, for almost 40 years so far.
“He had mentioned he was looking into winding down this particular character,” Wood told Vanity Fair, “So how do we move forward?”
Jones, 91 years old, has reportedly been working closely and actively with the studio to methodically teach the complex AI through machine learning so that the character of Vadar can live on after his retirement.
Jones is credited for guiding the performance of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Wood describes his contribution as “a benevolent godfather.” They inform the actor about their plans for Vader and heed his advice on how to stay on the right course.
“For a character such as Darth Vader, who might have 50 lines on a show, I might have a back-and-forth of almost over 10,000 files.” Wood explained that a lot of it involved dialogue clips and then continuing to fit it closely into scenes.
Most recently, Reespeacher used their technology and Jones’ work to artificially produce Darth Vader’s voice for the new Disney+ show Obi-Wan. Original Anakin Skywalker actor Hayden Christensen played the physical character, but with the use of AI, the character was voiced by James Earl Jones. He’s still credited for the final product of Obi-Wan. Both Respeecher and the producing studio Lucasfilm keep the actor in a position to give advice and help guide the proper use of Vader’s voice. Wood described the man as “a benevolent godfather.” to the set.
