Ian McDiarmid doubts George Lucas would have brought back Emperor Palpatine in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’.
The 75-year-old actor plays the iconic character in the money-spinning sci-fi franchise – but he doubts whether Lucas – who created the ‘Star Wars’ movies – would have brought Palpatine back from the dead, were he still at the helm.
He told IndieWire: "I thought I was dead!
"I thought he was dead. Because when we did ‘Return of the Jedi’, and I was thrown down that chute to Galactic Hell, he was dead. And I said, ‘Oh, does he come back?’ And [George] said, ‘No, he’s dead.’
"So I just accepted that. But then, of course, I didn’t know I was going to be doing the prequels, so in a sense he wasn’t dead, because we went back to revisit him when he was a young man. But I was totally surprised by this."
Meanwhile, McDiarmid previously admitted he felt like a band member in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’.
The veteran actor – who plays the main antagonist of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise – thinks his character and his team of "galactic nurses" resemble a band in the new movie.
He explained: "At the moment, the character is physically reliant on a number of small people, who act as galactic nurses – they are called the Heretics.
"They feel like a band, Palpatine and the Heretics. That’s my abiding image of the movie."
Ian McDiarmid doubts George Lucas would have brought back Emperor Palpatine
