Despite being the only person to appear in all 11 “Star Wars” films, Anthony Daniels has never been one to hog the spotlight. Known for portraying the human-cyborg relations droid C-3PO under a shiny gold suit, the actor was the guest of honor Monday night at the closing event for the San Francisco International Film Festival. He even received a proclamation from Supervisor Bilal Mahmood that officially declared May 4 “Star Wars” Day.
The ceremony took place at Starbelly. It preceded a screening of “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back” at the newly renovated Castro Theatre, which included an extended conversation between Daniels and Howard Roffman, a longtime Lucasfilm veteran and the SFFILM board vice president. During the film, cheers broke out at C-3PO’s first appearance and during at least three other moments.
Despite all the admiration, when asked about the idea of getting his own spinoff TV show, he dismissed the idea outright.
Article continues below this ad
Actor Anthony Daniels looks at his C-3PO head, part of his costume for the 1983 film “Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi,” during a photo-call at the Propstore in Rickmansworth in the United Kingdom on Jan. 17, 2024.
Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images
“The idea of wearing that suit for a whole series, not going to be possible,” he told SFGATE. “… I think Threepio has had very good innings, and I’m slightly against the whole thing becoming attenuated and kind of unraveling.”
Daniels is a classically trained actor who spent three years in drama school prior to donning the golden suit, with the “Star Wars” gig coming directly after playing Guildenstern in the play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” He shared with Roffman that originally he scoffed at the idea of doing a low-budget sci-fi film for an American director, but changed his mind when he saw a painting of C-3PO that showed the character’s emotional depth.
Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.
Add Preferred Source
“I was absolutely entranced by it. I always joked that, you know, I’ve seen a Mona Lisa in Paris. It’s crap. It doesn’t speak to me at all. This painting spoke to me,” he said to Roffman during the Q&A.
Article continues below this ad
Anthony Daniels, right, and Howard Roffman appear onstage at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on May 4, 2026.
Tommy Lau/SFFILM
He went on to describe the process of the creation for C-3PO’s suit as “one of the grossest experiences of my life,” during which he was covered in Saran Wrap and glazed in Vaseline before being enveloped in plaster.
Once the suit was created and filming began in Tunisia and London, Daniels found himself caught by surprise and out of his element due to the amount of improv required. In the script, R2-D2 originally had dialogue, but on set, the droid was silent, making it hard for Daniels to play off his primary scene partner (as a contrast, Chewbacca spoke English, replaced later with Wookiee language). However, the challenge wasn’t a concern for George Lucas, who planned on substituting Daniels’ voice with another actor’s anyway.
“He said the immortal line to me, ‘Don’t worry about the voice, I can fix it later, you can say anything you want,’” Daniels said. “… What he meant was, ‘I hate your performance already.’”
Article continues below this ad
Cosplayers dressed up as “Star Wars” characters walk through the lobby of the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on May 4, 2026.
Tommy Lau/SFFILM
Daniels proved himself worthy after all, but in the follow-up to the first film, he was still treated like an outcast, as he said Lucas wanted to keep the mystique around his robotic character.
“I wasn’t allowed to exist. So for the second time, I lost my humanity, once during filming and now perpetually. For months and months, everybody wanted to talk about ‘Star Wars,’” he said during the Q&A. “I wanted to talk about anything but. It was a very, very painful time, and rude and cruel.”
Article continues below this ad
That bitterness has long since softened, as he spoke with great affection for his colleagues when talking to SFGATE, albeit with a bit of snark. Despite Harrison Ford being “very mean” to his character, he declared himself a fan, stating that Ford would make a great director. Mark Hamill was the first actor he met on set: “His enthusiasm and his charm and his humor and his energy — exhausting. Tough job being the blond hero with all this weirdness around him.”
He called Carrie Fisher “tricky, but adorable — the words didn’t always come in the right order.”
R2-D2? “A pain in the butt,” he said.
Anthony Daniels, left, and Howard Roffman onstage at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on May 4, 2026.
Pamela Gentile/SFFILM
And he declared Lucas a genius, an inventor and an inspiration, as well as — in a backhanded compliment — well-suited for technological adaptation: “I think he’d prefer not to work with actors, just use AI. I think George would be in his element.”
Article continues below this ad
As for AI, Daniels considers himself “the first instance of amazing artificial intelligence on-screen.” Given that he’s now 80 years old, he said he’s not concerned about his own livelihood being affected, but the current state of the technology does give him pause, calling it “a little pernicious” and saying that lots of artists are going to suffer. When asked about the recent White House AI meme showing President Donald Trump as the Mandalorian, Daniels was quick with a “no comment.”
Another thing that Daniels declared he isn’t a big fan of: audiences talking during movies. But he did give fans permission to scream out after one of his character’s most iconic scenes, even going so far as to give them a practice round. In a fun moment of crowd participation during the Q&A, he read out one of C-3PO’s most iconic lines about the chances of the Millennium Falcon surviving a flight through an asteroid field, to which the crowd joyfully replied Han Solo’s line: “Never tell me the odds.”