‘Star Wars’ animator Phil Tippett took "way too much" LSD while working on ‘Return of the Jedi’ and climbed into a cupboard with his cat.
The visual effects producer took the psychedelic drug during production for the 1983 sci-fi movie and began talking to his feline friend, Brian, before the his four-legged pal took him "on a journey", but he ran in trouble at one stage when he couldn’t bear to be in the same room as the blue screen because it was so bright.
Speaking in a short documentary made for VICE Films, he said: "I took LSD when I was working on ‘Return of the Jedi’. I could communicate with my cat Brian, and Brian took me on a journey.
"I crawled into this cupboard with Brian the cat and we went to the centre of the Earth for like three billion years and I was just in this world of molecules. It was fine, it was very calming.
"I decided to go back to work and I was at ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] and I walked into the blue screen stage and it’s huge – everything’s just super illuminated bright blue – and it was just like ‘Aaaah, I took like way too much.’ "
Despite taking drugs during the production stage of the movie, it didn’t appear to have an adverse effect on the animation as Phil went on to win his first Academy Award for visual effects in the motion picture.
The animator – who has also worked on ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’, ‘Willow’, and four of the ‘Twilight Saga’ movies – won a second Oscar for his work on adventure sci-fi movie ‘Jurassic Park’.
Phil was also a supervisor on the Millennium Falcon chess scene in the latest ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘Episode VII – The Force Awakens’.
Star Wars animator took LSD during production
