Gareth [Edwards] was very open to just shaping the performances and the scenes to fit what was happening with the actors and the storytelling that was emerging.
Those in power at Disney, the very generous figures at Disney Animation, have convinced themselves I'm a good-luck charm for their movies, which is great. It's working out really well for me, and it seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Because I'm CGI, [John Swartz] gave me a role of an Imperial pilot in one scene, so I had a day where I was on camera dressed as a black suit and a little cap that they wear.
I wrote and directed and acted in it and produced it, every job I have since that - and Star Wars included - I look at it completely different now. Now that I've seen how it gets made, I can appreciate the jobs that people are doing, and it's also become a different learning experience for me to work on things because I'm watching pros at the top of their field do their jobs and just picking up on their tricks and all of their expertise and stashing them away in my brain.
I'm there [on Moana] with the other actors, so you play off one another. It's not just your idea of what the character is and what the world is like it would be in an animated [film], where it all sort of exists in your head. It's all right there, and if Diego's performance is doing what it's doing, it affects yours.
R2-D2 is like that, but I think because he doesn't speak actual words, his jokes don't land. It's really a hindrance. And the same with BB-8. But Artoo is a lot stronger.
[Clowns] gotten a really bad rap in the last few years. People have really given into their own fears and have celebrated their fears in that way. American Horror Story didn't help.
Gareth [Edwards] was very much about including everyone in what we were making, so he would cut together different scenes to show us what we were making. And the crew, cast, everyone would go into a theater there at Pinewood Studios and watch 10 minutes of what we were making. It was always so exciting. It looked amazing, and the music was huge.
I have a very close friend who is a brilliant clown, and I always wanted to do a show with him. So I did one year at La MaMa Theatre. I had not done stilts before that show, and I had about two weeks to learn how to do that, and they were just made with off-off Broadway money. The ones that I had in Rogue One were made by [Industrial Light & Magic]. So they were really easy. They were made with actual prosthetic feet on the bottom. They were athletic, in a way. I could run in them. There was a bounce to them that I could use.
Reading is a heady thing. You can be into the action of someone's thoughts and take a whole trip down someone's ruminations while seconds tick by in the world that they're in, but you can't really do that in film. Some films can, but not too much.
Wray Nerely, the character in Con Man, he actually had a role in Rogue One, but he got cut. It sucked. John Swartz, the producer, is a big fan of Con Man. I even got to screen Con Man while we were shooting Star Wars. They had a theater there, and they let me screen one of the little 10-minute episodes for everyone. What sucked was I had to follow Star Wars.