Many people dream of being a part of their favourite TV show, regardless of whether it’s live-action or animated, or part of the cast or crew. I achieved the next best thing without even knowing it for a long time.
Star Wars has been a part of me for all of my life. It is (and always will be) my favourite movie franchise. People ask me why I like Star Wars so much and the answer is simple. It’s a story of hope and people finding their place in a world. The latter is something I struggled with for a very long time until I found my skills lay in podcasting and conducting interviews.
I’ve been podcasting for around five years (since I was 15). Though I mostly did small appearances on podcasts at first, from 17 onwards I’ve been hosting this Everything Geek Podcast which has become very popular. Through my podcasting I’ve been able to interview hundreds of cast and crew members from my favourite films and TV shows, a number of whom I keep in contact with on a regular basis and I consider them more than just ‘interviewees’ or ‘celebrities’. One of my many interviewees did something that I’ll never forget.
Voice-actress Anna Graves has had a very good voice-over career. Not only did she voice multiple roles in Star Wars: The Clone Wars but she has voiced in several Call of Duty video-games, an X-Men video-game and the Avatar video-game (based on the movie released in 2009). Since The Clone Wars she has worked on other Star Wars projects including The Old Republic video-game and Disney Infinity 3.0.
Graves was originally cast as Satine Kryze (the duchess of Mandalore) on The Clone Wars, before going on to voice Sugi (a Zabrak bounty hunter), Meena Tills (a Mon Calamari senator), Tiplar and Tiplee (two Jedi sisters). The last two characters are the characters I’ll be focusing on.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars began with an animated film which was released on August 15th, 2008. It then became a TV series which ran from October 3rd, 2008, to March 7th, 2014. The first five seasons aired on Cartoon Network and the sixth season (which ended up being the final season aired) was released on Netflix.
On February 16th, 2013, while The Clone Wars was still on air, I had the opportunity to guest host on the short lived Delgado-Williamson Collecting Show podcast where I interviewed Graves for the first time. It was over two years later (when I had just begun putting together the Everything Geek Podcast website together) that Graves revealed that (on the very same day we did that interview in 2013) she had used an Irish accent for two of her characters, Tiplar and Tiplee, during the recording session for an episode of The Clone Wars that turned out to be one of the last episodes released. Graves revealed to me in an e-mail that she had remembered our interview and used me as the inspiration for the voice of both characters. This is what she said in that e-mail:
“I will tell you this little tid bit, since the “sixth” season of Clone Wars was finally released on Netflix…. I wanted to tell you that the day that I did the FIRST interview for your podcast was the day that I later went into the studio and recorded the voices of Tiplee and Tiplar, the Jedi sisters from the Order 66 mishap. We were trying to figure out what the sisters would sound like and I suggested to Dave Filoni that we give the sisters an Irish accent and he loved the idea. SO thank YOU for the inspiration!”
The episode featuring Tiplar and Tiplee was titled “The Unknown” and was the first of the thirteen episodes that debuted on Netflix on March 7th, 2014. If you re-watch it anytime soon be sure to keep an ear out for their Irish accents!
As a lifelong Star Wars fan, knowing that I was the inspiration for the voices of Tiplar and Tiplee meant a lot to me and (even after knowing for almost a year now) it still hasn’t sunk in. Every time I’ve re-watched the episode with both characters it’s hard to fathom that I was an inspiration for my favourite animated show. They may have only appeared in one episode but I’ll remember both characters for the rest of my life as a result. Star Wars isn’t just one of the best franchises of all time because of its quality, but because the cast and crew of Star Wars projects are always looking for inspiration. I never thought I would be an inspiration though. I owe my deepest thanks to Anna Graves for using me as an inspiration and to The Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni for going along with her idea.
By Ruari Williamson
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