How do you go from being a small-time actor in Madison, Wisconsin, to playing Darth Vader in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game? Matt Sloan did it by creating viral video hit Chad Vader, a series of videos about Darth Vader's underachieving younger brother, and then snagged George Lucas' attention by winning the 2007 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.
Matt Sloan (on left) and Aaron Yonda co-created the runaway Internet hit, Chad Vader. Photo courtesy of The New York Times
Those fortuitous events led to Sloan voicing Vader in the just newly released Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (as well as SoulCalibur 4 and Empire at War: Forces of Corruption), beating out hundreds of professional actors in the world's biggest cities.
"[When I first got the call to do the part] Yeah, I was pretty excited, who wouldn't be?" He says, "I'm not really a Star Wars fanatic or anything, but I loved the movies as a kid and it's exciting to be a part of that as an adult."
How does one capture the alto tones that helped make James Earl Jones famous? Sloan says that LucasArts uses "live processing, so it's not a post-production effect. They certainly have all the technology out there, so they find the pitch of the voice, and put a kind of metallic echo on it." Back in Minnesota, Sloan gets a similar effect while recording by talking through a PVC-like tube that puts an echo on his voice.
"I try not to worry about the machines and just really work on getting the voice right. At the same time, I try and get as close to James Earl Jones as possible. Especially for the game, that's more important than anything, because I'm actually playing Darth Vader," he says. "But when we're doing Chad Vader, he's really developed his own personality, and I think the voice has changed as a result of that."
Sloan didn't start out his career as a Vader sound-alike. He's always had an interest in comedy and film. He partnered with another Madisonite named Aaron Yonda to create Chad Vader and after starting production, Sloan says they were stuck without anyone to do "the voice."
At first, the duo planned to just find someone with a deep voice to talk through a homegrown voice modulator, but then Sloan says he thought he'd give it a try.
"So we watched all the Star Wars movies and fast-forwarded to the Darth Vader scenes – just to get a sense of what his voice sounded like, and how he said certain words," Sloan says. "And we did the recording session and it turned out pretty good."
Now Sloan has been immortalized in voice and in action figures. Well, sort of.
"It's funny, they recently released a new line of toys and some of them are from The Force Unleashed and I had to buy the "Battle-damaged Vader" because that's my action figure," he says. "That kind of stuff is pretty cool."
Interview conducted by Harmon Daniels.
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