Frank Oz is a legend in Hollywood. The puppeteer and voice-actor is famous for his work on “The Muppet Show,” as well as “Sesame Street.” However, for “Star Wars” fans, he’ll always been known as the man who brought Yoda to life. And in the recent “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Oz returned to the ‘Star Wars’ universe one more time, in a secret cameo as the little green Jedi.
In a recent interview with IGN, Oz discussed how this cameo came about, and the great lengths the actor had to go to keep it a secret. “Several years ago I had lunch with Rian [Johnson], and Rian asked if I could do Yoda in the next ‘Star Wars,’ and I said ‘Sure,’ because I thought it was just CGI. And then [Lucasfilm president] Kathy Kennedy, who I’ve known for quite a while, who’s fantastic, she called me about it and then I realized that it wasn’t CGI, that it was actually the character,” Oz said.
Of course, as fans are well aware, there’s a big difference between CGI Yoda and Puppet Yoda. And for Johnson and Kennedy, they wanted the better of the two choices, Puppet Yoda, for ‘The Last Jedi.’
“I said, ‘Kathy, do you have any idea what’s going to happen here? This is tough!’ and she said ‘That’s okay, let’s do it.’ So, you know, the workshop made him and everything, and did a fantastic job,” Oz continued.
Now, if you’re as recognizable as Frank Oz, you can’t just go waltzing around the Disney studio lot expecting not to get noticed. So, Oz and the crew at Lucasfilm had to develop a cover story for the actor. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far-fetched.
Oz said, “I was told that that was going to be the surprise of the movie, so when I went to Pinewood I had to be a secret there. Although if people saw me… people DID see me, but if they questioned me it would have been fine because I shot ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ … there, and could have just said I had some meetings for movies. But the idea was to keep me off the credits. I was asked, ‘Could you have your name off the poster?’ and I said ‘Sure.’ So the idea was that that would be the surprise.”
Luckily for everyone involved, the cameo stayed a secret, and even though the film is very divisive among fans, Yoda’s cameo is still well-liked. But that’s probably because the character has become so iconic in pop culture that there was no way people wouldn’t like the scene.
Since Oz is responsible for one of the ‘Star Wars’ universe’s most famous characters, and Lucasfilm has been rumored to make a spin-off film about almost every character in the galaxy, IGN asked if Oz knows of a solo “Yoda” film?
“You know what, I keep hearing that and I know nothing about it,” Oz confirmed.