This interview was conducted with Peter for Star Wars Insider #28, 1996.

After nearly 20 years of inhabiting his furry insoles, actor Peter Mayhew still stands tall as the Star Wars universe’s most famous Wookiee, Chewbacca. Of course, at 7’3", Mayhew could stand tall almost anywhere, but from his unique vantage point, the quiet actor is nevertheless amazed at the continued popularity of his character and of the Star Wars saga.

"It’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful that it’s still as strong as it ever was," says Mayhew from his London home. "With Star Wars fans, there’s so much enthusiasm, and it’s a completely different generation now. It’s the children of the people who were children when we were making the trilogy."

Mayhew believes the video revolution is responsible for keeping Star Wars in the public eye. "A whole new generation is looking at the videos, and going to the video shop and buying the re-release of the complete trilogy, which you can buy at a reasonable price."

Mayhew reports having a vague awareness that the force of Star Wars’ popularity was stirring again, but it took traveling to America for a convention appearance to convince him of its strength. "Up until about six months ago, I knew there was an interest around the world, but I didn’t realize how great it was," he says. "Then I got invited to do a convention in Pasadena in August, and I saw over 3,500 people there. And that was only in one city. It’s just a phenomenon."

Mayhew’s Hollywood career began when he was cast from London as the Minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, starring Patrick Wayne and Jane Seymour. Mayhew was working as a hospital orderly when the producers noticed Mayhew’s photograph in a local newspaper.

From there, Mayhew was called in to audition for Star Wars, and his life was changed forever.

Mayhew performed as Chewbacca, the 200-year-old Wookiee co-pilot of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, in all three films. Which meant, of course, that his entire performance took place from within Chewbacca’s hairy, bear-like costume. "Let me put you in the picture," says Mayhew. "It was a great big over-suit. It was a knitted mohair suit, with yak hair for the fluffy effect, and underneath I had a leotard, and body padding, so it was fairly comfortable when we were out on location, but in studios, with the lights, it did get rather hot and sweaty."

The padding was worn from Mayhew’s shoulders to his waist. "When we first put the costume on, you could see the human shape underneath, so the padding gave Chewie his rounded shape, really. But, apart from that, there was very little on underneath the suit."

In addition to the physical discomfort of the cumbersome costume, Mayhew had to perform a character whose vocabulary consisted entirely of roars and growls that would be added later by sounds effects wizards. "When you consider that you’re a character that doesn’t speak, but you’ve still got to react to the other actors, you’ve got to make a noise of some kind," says Mayhew.

As a result, Mayhew performed all of Chewbacca’s "dialogue" from behind the character’s mask. "I’m sitting in the Falcon cockpit," remembers Mayhew, "and there’s probably Mark (Hamill) or Carrie (Fisher) in the back, and obviously Chewie’s got to have something to say, even though those noises were dubbed in afterward."

Mayhew’s vocal performance, he says, "varied from high pitched screams to low growls. After a while, the character sort of took over. It was amazing that during rehearsals, without any of the costume on, the character was there complete. It just happened. Half the time, I didn’t know I was doing it."

Of the three films in the trilogy, Mayhew’s most physically challenging scenes occurred in The Empire Strikes Back, when Chewbacca was called on to carry the dismembered See-Threepio during the Rebels’ escape from Cloud City.

"Basically, Threepio was in a cargo net, and the net was attached to my back, and underneath the costume there was a body belt, and Threepio was literally hung from a bucket- the top half of his body," says Mayhew.

To bring the droid to life, the special effects technicians used a sophisticated, cutting-edge technique- fishing line. "Threepio’s arms were tied up with fishing cables which ran under the costume, and onto my hands," says Mayhew. "So as I ran, Threepio’s hands moved in the opposite direction. The head was a similar thing, a very thin line from the head down through the neck under my shoulders onto the finger of my hand, so as I moved my arms up and down, Threepio’s head swiveled."

"On certain scenes, there was battery power for Threepio’s eyes, like when I’m putting him together (in the Cloud City Prison). There were various stages of Threepio," says Mayhew of the Empire scenes, "but when I was carrying him, Threepio probably weighed 30 or 40 pounds. It was quite heavy." These scenes took three or four days to complete. Mayhew remembers those as "the worst."

Coming in a close second were those scenes in Empire which took place on Hoth, as Han and Chewbacca attempt to take out an Imperial probe droid. "That was fairly horrendous. It was cold and the wind was blowing. It was just a bit unpleasant. But the filming of that scene was only half a day," remembers Mayhew.

Of the three films, however, Mayhew remembers most fondly Return of the Jedi. "I don’t know why," the actor says. "I think while Star Wars was set purely out in space- it nearly all happened somewhere out in the universe- and Empire was often cold and wet and miserable, on Jedi, we were on terra firma, and it was just a nice film to work on. I suppose it’s the last one that I worked on, and the memories are still there. Jedi was the nicest of the lot. It has a little bit of slapstick comedy, especially in the Ewok Battle scene. It’s like the Keystone Cops. It’s a lovely scene," he says.

Throughout the three films, Mayhew reports that remarkably few changes were made to Chewbacca’s costume. "It remained pretty consistent. Obviously, throughout that period of time, the mask had to be remade, but nothing that would alter the appearance of it. It never seemed that it was totally reconstructed." Mayhew credits special effects make-up supervisor Stuart Freeborn with the success of Chewbacca’s look. "He’s a master," says the actor.

Throughout the course of the trilogy, Mayhew worked with three very different directors- each one with a different approach to Chewbacca. "With George (Lucas), we were in agreement about what Chewie could do and couldn’t do, and how to do it," says Mayhew. "A lot of people on that film hadn’t worked on very many other projects, and we were all flying by the seat of our pants.

"Irvin Kershner, on Empire, he had definite ideas about what Chewie’s character was. He’d say, ‘Chewie should be doing this, that, and the other’ and luckily, I presume, I got his message across, because I never got any complaints. It was, I suppose, luck more than good judgement on my part.

"Richard Marquand, on Jedi, was very much an actor’s director," remembers Mayhew. "I think by that time I knew where Chewie was going, and he left me to do what was called for, because the character had been well established. You know, it was like putting on a second skin by that time."

But Mayhew made one other appearance as Chewbacca that many fans may never have seen- on "The Star Wars Holiday Special," which aired in 1978. In the television special, Chewbacca’s family and home world are seen for the first (and possibly only) time. "That was great fun," says Mayhew.

It’s the actor’s impression that the Wookiee scenes in the "Holiday Special" helped George Lucas decide on how best to bring the Ewoks to life in Return of the Jedi. "Nobody else had tried to create a family of Wookiees of all ages and sizes, the get their characters right," Mayhew says. The efforts of the American-based special effects crew were not entirely successful, in Mayhew’s opinion, and probably resulted in changes being made by the time the Ewoks made their appearance in the trilogy’s third film.

"I’m afraid that when you compare Chewie’s mask with some of the American masks (seen in the "Holiday Special"), the American masks might be more technically right, but they didn’t work as well. What they were trying to do with the American masks is have the remote-control cables running to the eyes and the mouth, and it just didn’t work. When you’ve got eight or nine or ten cables running around with someone trying to operate them, it’s too much," he points out.

"However, it proved that the Ewoks, or something like them, would be appealing," he says. Indeed, one of the highlights of the "Holiday Special" is in seeing Chewbacca’s family interact, especially his young son, who looks remarkably like what would later become the Ewoks.

Mayhew has recently teamed with several of his colleagues from the Star Wars trilogy, and may be making several convention appearances with them throughout 1996. "We’ve got a possibility of a deal with ‘The Men Behind The Masks’- all the guys who played masked characters, Dave Prowse (Darth Vader), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), and if it works out, we’ll get a license to do six or seven appearances in the States this year," says Mayhew.

As Mayhew’s appearance in the Star Wars trilogy was behind a mask, and since George Lucas has made no mention of Chewbacca appearing in the prequel trilogy, would Mayhew perhaps be interested in appearing as another character in the new trilogy of films?

"The answer to that question is yes, all the way, I would do a completely different character," say Mayhew enthusiastically. "I would do them tomorrow. George has only got to ring me. His imagination is so wonderful, I’d do any character he might create. Wouldn’t it be fun to perhaps be a bad guy?"