Temuera Morrison Thinks His Character Is Too Talkative In The New Show
Since Disney purchased Star Wars in 2012, they have pumped out a lot of media related to the IP. Five movies and several streaming series have been released, with even more on the way, such as the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi show. The latest one to debut has been The Book of Boba Fett, a show, fittingly enough, that centers around the mysterious bounty hunter of the same name. Based on the reviews so far, the general consensus is that the show itself is on the right side of pretty decent. It's no Mandalorian, but nothing has been so far.
As expected, one of the highlights of the show is the lead performance of actor Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett. Morrison brings an intensity to fight scenes and calm, confident conviction to the quieter moments. However, there is one aspect that Morrison himself finds frustrating about his performance; He talks too much.
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It's a fair point, given the history of the character. In the original trilogy, Boba Fett only had a grand total of four lines, consisting of five sentences and twenty-seven words, one of which was probably "AEEEEE" as he fell into the saarlac pit. He's not exactly chatting it up like C3PO. His lack of loquaciousness was part of the draw of the character. Between his awesome armor and his mere presence, he instantly became one of the most iconic characters in the whole series. Given that everybody is getting their own show lately, it's no surprise that Boba's getting his turn in the spotlight. However, Morrison doesn't see his increase in lines for the show as a good thing, and he wanted to give a lot of them to Ming-Na Wen, who played his second-in-command Fennec Shand. In an interview with comicbook.com, Morrison goes into his thought process,
"I speak far too much. In fact, in the beginning, I was trying to pass my lines on to Ming-Na [Wen]. I said: 'Excuse me director, I really feel that Ming-Na should say these lines' cause I wanna stay mysterious. I wanna stay quiet."
It makes sense, given the history of the character, and Morrison is somebody who would know him better than most. He's the one actually playing the character. However, that's something that's difficult to overcome when the show is focused virtually entirely on his character. Of course, Morrison wasn't under the illusion that Boba would have no lines, but everything happening in the show is either happening to him or caused by him. We need to know his thought process on some level, and he can't just speak four lines an episode. There are only so many lines that he can pass on to his second-in-command without it being out of place and awkward.
Perhaps as the show goes on, writer Jon Favreau will listen to Morrison and try to get Boba fewer lines. Part of the appeal of the character was his mystery, after all, and trying to keep as much of that appeal as possible would be ideal. However, that's a big challenge, as he is the lead character. It's not impossible for a lead character to have little, if any dialogue, but it's harder here, especially in an action series like this one and the situations he was put in. He needed to talk a lot during the Tusken Raider scenes, that was unavoidable. We would just get a bunch of grunts and sign language otherwise, and then nobody knows what's going on. However, in terms of Boba having fewer lines going forward, it is possible, but highly unlikely.
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Source(s): Screen Rant, CBR