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Ben Schwartz Talks Playing BB-8 In STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

It was revealed a few weeks ago that Ben Schwartz, along with Bill Hader, provided the voice for the adorable BB-8 droid in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. On a recent episode of the Comedy Bang Bang podcast, Schwartz talked about how he came to get the part.

Schwartz said that his friend J.J. Abrams sought him out because he wanted the character to have some personality, so the comedian recorded some lines. But even after effects were applied, BB-8 apparently still sounded too human. It was at that point that Hader was brought in, and that addition seems to have put the character over the top.

“I don’t know how much of the stuff that we did is in the actual film,” Schwartz said, “I did spend so much time—a bunch of those scenes were fun. It was so surreal and so awesome. I would see scenes from the movie before anybody, it was so amazing.” Schwartz also provided a (fake) spoiler for the movie: In the movie, BB-8 is actually revealed to be Schwartz himself.

The Star Wars portion of the conversation begins at about 16 minutes into the episode, which can be heard here or below:

Since the news initially broke, the Internet, as it is wont to do, turned into a mash-up factory, creating memes merging BB-8 with Schwartz’s Parks and Recreation character, Jean Ralphio. For example, here’s how BB-8 would have accumulated his wealth is he was an over-privileged son of a doctor played by Henry Winkler:

http://hobotrashsebastian.tumblr.com/post/136426916615

And we were not aware that BB-8 is technically homeless:

The mash-up tumblr page Stars & Recreation: Mini-Horse Awakens has plenty of other examples, so head over there in case this didn’t whet your appetite, and tell us in the comments about the best mash-up you’ve come across.

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HT: Uproxx

Featured image courtesy of NBC

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