Star Wars Tales of the Jedi Rely Dooku Interview: Corey Burton

Should you’re a Star Wars fan, speaking to legendary voice actor Corey Burton is usually a little scary. In any case, on The Clone Wars, Burton was the voice of villainous Sith Lord Rely Dooku, in addition to vicious bounty hunter Cad Bane. Neither character is somebody you’d like to fulfill in a darkish alley. (Or vibrant avenue for that matter.) This 12 months, Burton reprised each roles to nice impact: Bane for The E-book of Boba Fett, and now Dooku in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. io9 spoke to him concerning the latter.

In Dooku’s three-episode arc, we first see a totally new model of the character: a younger, heroic Jedi Grasp with a younger apprentice by the title of Qui-Gon Jinn, years earlier than the story we already know. Within the second episode, Dooku begins to see cracks in his once-beloved Jedi Order, and by the top, we see him absolutely flip to the Darkish Aspect, establishing the Dooku from Assault of the Clones and, extra importantly, The Clone Wars, the place Burton supplied the voice.

Chatting with Burton final week, io9 was shocked to listen to that when the actor bought the decision about Tales of the Jedi, his first intuition was to alter his Dooku. “My thought was, let’s do him like a younger form of Michael York, a younger Shakespearean kind,” he stated. “Ahead trying, formidable, however, you realize, constructive spirited. And so I had figured on doing a younger, vibrant model. Form of on a brand new sort of model of him.”

Little did Burton know that when recording began, his selection for the youthful Dooku was not what collection author and creator Dave Filoni had in thoughts. “I began out and I stated, ‘Oh, properly, what do you consider enjoying him younger like this?’” Burton stated. “And I demonstrated. He was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, simply do Dooku. Our voices don’t change that a lot from younger maturity, if in any respect. Simply play the character.”

That direction was fine by Burton, a veteran of the medium who, unlike his Tales of the Jedi co-star Ashley Eckstein, doesn’t prefer to get too wrapped up in Star Wars lore. “After I’m performing, and particularly with one thing like this that’s very particular, it’s all beneath wraps. There are not any spoilers [and] I don’t prefer to have it spoiled for myself both,” Burton stated. “I prefer to be within the second the character’s in. So I don’t prefer to know something apart from what the character is aware of inside the framework of these specific scenes. I don’t need that to affect me if I do know that Obi-Wan and Anakin and are plotting one thing.”

What he does is rely closely on Filoni and the crew round him. “I’m very remoted,” Burton stated. “I’m very a lot within the pores and skin of that character once I’m performing it. I don’t take into consideration a lot else. And once more, with Dave in my ear and in my head, I’m making an attempt to, via him, be linked as intently as potential with what was within the author’s thoughts. And I feel collectively we achieved that.”

Although Burton prefers to not look into Dooku’s backstory or take into consideration hyperlinks to Assault of the Clones, he’s excited by the present and relished the prospect to broaden on a personality he’d been voicing for thus a few years. “I satisfaction myself in being a craftsman, a craft employee. And each character and each manufacturing is that this crew effort,” he stated. “Dave is is the grasp storyteller. And, in serving that, hopefully I’m bringing that to the microphone. And all of it matches collectively and types one thing actually particular. One thing better than the sum of its elements.”

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi is now on Disney+

Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the most recent Marvel,
Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and all the things that you must find out about James Cameron’s Avatar: The Manner of Water.