Last night in Los Angeles, a group of actors were brought together by director Jason Reitman (you may know him from the movie Juno) to do a live reading of The Empire Strikes Back. This is an unusual departure from other live readings, because this movie relied more heavily on special effects and action than actual dialogue. Most live readings choose films that are comedies or dramas due to the fact that it gives the actors a better opportunity to perform their craft. To be fair, though, The Empire Strikes Back probably had the best dialogue out of all of the Star Wars movies.
The other interesting thing involving this reading were the actor choices for each role. Here's the list:
Luke Skywalker - Aaron Paul
Han Solo - Ellen Page
Princess Leia - Jessica Alba
Darth Vader - JK Simmons
C-3P0 - Stephen Merchant
Lando Calrissian - Dennis Haysbert
Yoda - Kevin Pollak
Wait...what? Ellen Page as Han Solo? Yep! Here's what Reitman told EW on why he chose Ellen Page for the role.
"In casting Han, the most important thing is: who has the most interesting, ironic approach to life? And when I think of that, I think of Ellen Page. She's a small human being who has the energy to fill Madison Square Garden."
Tickets sold out for this event ages ago, and they actually had to move it from it's original location at the Loss Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to a bigger theater that was downtown to accomodate the larger audience.
I would have loved to have been able to attend this show! Can you imagine Kevin Pollak performing Yoda in his Christopher Walken voice? Okay, I'm sure he didn't do it that way, but still...pretty funny, right?
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