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Matt Lanter on the joy of giving Star Wars: The Clone Wars back to fans, Padmé's pregnancy, and more
The Chosen One is safe and secure, worry not.
Matt Lanter (Anakin Skywalker on Star Wars: The Clone Wars) may be caught up in the same world of self-quarantine as the rest of us, but he took the time to speak with SYFY WIRE's podcast about everything Star Wars, Jabba the Pod, about the amazing return of the beloved show, lessons we can learn from Anakin, and his entry into live-action Star Wars thanks to The Mandalorian.
Lanter is obviously much more than just our beloved animated Anakin — he's also starred in the insanely popular series Timeless, among other televised jaunts. For us, however, some part of him will always be Skyguy. Here's a snippet of our discussion below.
We all know what's going on in the world right now, are you okay? Is the Chosen One secure?
I'm secure. I'm here on Coruscant just hanging out in the temple, you know, putting up my pod racing posters. But no, I'm going pretty good, we're good ... we're actually down here in Tennessee, I'm with my family and just hanging out. Keeping in tune to the news and just trying to stay healthy and safe and happy, ride this thing out like everyone else. You know, we're all in it together.
In the middle of all of this, we have this amazing return of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Anakin's back. How does that feel after all these years, that it is still going on?
First of all, yeah, it's amazing. It's such a great feeling to know what people love The Clone Wars, people love this thing that you know I'm a part of. I love the Star Wars universe. It's almost like Christmas when you get to give a gift to somebody else, how fun and exciting that is for the gift giver. You know, it kind of felt like that to me. We put in a lot of hard work and you know, we're excited about it and when people finally get to see it and then react positively to it, it's a really great feeling.
It's just fun ... you know it's interesting, though, because I voice a lot of Anakin still in video games and other little side projects ... it's not like I put Anakin down for five years. I'm constantly doing things with Anakin.
Speaking of giving gifts, can we discuss the recent scene of Anakin and Padmé's holo-call? Does Anakin just not notice that his wife is pregnant, or maybe doesn't want to call it out yet?
It's kind of ambiguous, I don't know. I don't know if she is keeping it from him because they're not able to be together or he is trying to hold out because obviously that's not the Jedi way.
He's being a gentleman, he's looking her in the eyes.
Yeah, in the hologram, right? They kind of lock hands, hologram to human.
It was a nice WALL-E moment.
They're very romantic, yeah.
You get the feeling that Anakin and Rex have made this call happen before. How many times do you think Anakin and his main man have done this routine?
Probably several now. But you know what, I love that exchange because it kind of shows the closeness of Anakin and Rex, and I love that you know Rex is trying to cover, and trying to do good by him ... obviously Obi-Wan is pretty smart and knows what's going on. But I love that moment because it's just really kind of playful, the playful nature of Anakin and Rex together.
They aren't really fooling anybody. At this point pretty much everyone knows.
Yeah, even the Battle Droids know.
Whether or not you continue in Star Wars (in any capacity) as Anakin, there could potentially be more Star Wars in your future. You popping up for a cameo in The Mandalorian was a delightful surprise.
It was very secretive, as all Star Wars things are, and I've known that, but even more so in the live action. Dave called me up and was kinda like, "Hey, is this something you would wanna do?" and I was like, "Yeah, absolutely," so I got to work with Dave and he was on set with me, and of course Jon Favreau was there ... very involved in the story and the episodes and day-to-day shooting.
Every time I got out of my trailer, I had to have a cloak; I was wearing a cloak so no one could see my uniform. It was kind of the first time we've seen that New Republic soldier on film.
That was partially why it was so special, absolutely.
We had started making my costume, it was the slight wrong color, and I said something to Dave about it ... he was like, "Well, what color?" And he was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that needs to change." So they had to redo my costume ... I guess I'm saying that to show that you know Dave, he's so hands-on and so specific, even down to slight color variations and things like that.
I love that Dave has got such a tight grip on that, and I just think that Star Wars storytelling in the hands of Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau is golden, you know?
For our full discussion with Matt Lanter (as well as a status report on how our Starbinger heroes Caitlin Busch, Matt Romano, and Brian Silliman are staying sane), take a listen to the full interview below ... or wherever you get your podcasts.
