INTERVIEW: Actor, David Prowse

The iconic role of Darth Vader may have been the performance that brought David to his height of fame, but this chap is a character himself. Having played an exhibition of monsters and heavies throughout film and British cult TV, from The Saint to Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People to a flirtation with comedy in the Morecambe & Wise Show, perhaps David was always destined to portray the similitude of a cinematic god.

The following interview was broadcast on The Geekend, Radio Reverb on 3rd September 2011.

GG: You are the man behind the mask of Darth Vader; the light-saber wielding, hand severing, Obi-Wan slaying, Dark Lord of Star Wars. Now I’m sure all avid Star Wars fans know this inside out including myself, but for the benefit of our listeners, how did you get the part of the galaxy’s most feared super-villain; Darth Vader?

LONDON FILM AND COMIC CON 2011

Oh what fun. It's definitely convention fever what with Kapow! popping it's cherry back in April and fan boy mecca San Diego kicking off on 21st July.

London Film and Comic Con 2011 sandwiches nicely between the two, held at London's Earls Court over the course of three days.

Now, I've been to a few conventions now, and I am happy to report that LFCC was, by far, the medal winner for star access and star turnout. Row upon row of desks, row upon row of stellar sci-fi and fantasy names, I honestly didn't have time to meet them all! The only exceptions to this rule were Doctor Who hot property Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston, who were strictly shepherded to and from the stage, with no brazen photo ops in between (unless you paid the princely sum of £15+).

It wasn't all pleasure for me though as I worked hard, running a live Twitter feed for all who couldn't attend, with as many of the juicy exclusives and surprise moments to come out of the panels that my typing ability would allow. Any faster and there may have been smoke.

My highlight's included:

• Voice of Doctor Who's K-9; John Leeson doing his finest K-9 for me
• Having Brent Spiner wave finger guns at me as we passed each other
• Singing 'Happy Birthday' (along with the rest of the audience) to Corey Feldman, who celebrated his 40th birthday on the day of his panel
• 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy showing me to my seat as I budged up to get closer to the action.
• The life size R2D2 replicas that were scooting around causing mischief