I know everyone is talking about how he voiced Vader, but when I think of him, I think of Strangelove and Hunt for Red October. I didn't spend a lot of time in the fleet, but what I did was rather boring and/or annoying; the idea that something exciting would happen in the CIC is probably why I often think of the line "Now, understand, Commander, that torpedo did not self-destruct. You heard it hit the hull. And I was never here."
Just read on his Wikipedia page that he made it through Ranger school in the Korean War era. That's an accomplishment. Several readers here will know that's not really an easy thing to do. Overcame stuttering as a kid. Went to Ranger school (as an African American in the 50s.) Performed Shakespeare and contemporary plays and worked in film. A true dude. Lifting one in his honor this evening (though I'm old enough that it has to be a non-alcoholic one.)
wikipedia says "Jones was commissioned in mid-1953, after the Korean War's end, and reported to Fort Benning (now Fort Moore) to attend the Infantry Officers Basic Course. He attended Ranger School and received his Ranger Tab."
I love that movie too. It’s amazing how well it holds up for it being, in many ways, a tech-focused movie - I mean, yeah, the tech is very much dated and completely a product of its time, but it doesn’t look at all ridiculous. Undoubtedly probably helps that it was pre-WWW/popular internet.
I was told by an industry insider (taken at face value), that he almost never turned down a part, which drove his agent nuts. That's why he was in these kind of oddball movies. I suspect that Nicholas Cage is similar.
Ah, the 'working actor'. Gary Oldman (who also calls himself a working actor) kinda tanked his career for a while by getting typecast as a villain. Playing Sirius Black was basically autobiographical, and kind of got him unstuck.
Rosencrantz and Stansfield made him my favorite actor for the first decade of my adulthood. Zorg is okay. That terrible Lost in Space movie lowered his trajectory for a while. He’s been hitting home runs a lot since.
But if you hear him in interviews he thinks of himself as a working actor. He’s doing the job. But the right people think he can do a good job so he’s getting better roles.
I'll never defend "Lost in Space" as a cinematic tour-de-force in the traditional sense but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most quintessentially-90s films ever made. It has Silicon Graphics logos and bubble-shaped silver electronics everywhere. William Hurt managed to find time to slip away from the "Dark City" set to make an appearance. Pre-Felicity Shagwell/post-Rollergirl Heather Graham fends off advances from Joey Tribbiani while the crazy guy from "Leon: The Professional" makes a bunch of bizarre wisecracking non-sequiturs. A brash Big beat remix of the original TV theme blares over the credits immediately following a fight involving a giant CGI (SGI?) spider.
I disliked it intensely as a kid but enjoy it a lot in retrospect because of my high-resolution nostalgia goggles.
He really disappears into whatever character he is playing. Truly one of the exceptional actors of our time. That show in particular highlights this very well.
Probably, although it’s also well documented that Cage took a lot of roles to pay off his extensive debts after blowing through nine digits of his wealth.
My wife's cousin worked the case where they forced Nic Cage to give back the dinosaur skull he bought for a quarter mil at an illegal auction to the Mongolian government. He had to take every role ever offered to him because he made some amazingly stupid financial decisions.
Because HN skews younger, I expect there are some out there who haven't seen "The Vader Sessions" from the early YouTube era, in which James Earl Jones dialog from his other films was spliced into Star Wars Vader scenes. I think it's a testament to his range:
I also am one who thinks of The Hunt For Red October. You already listed the best quote in the movie from him, but the above also makes me giggle every time.
Also in that scene when he slightly moves his hand to get Jack to back off from interrogating the admiral about whether he’d ever met Ramius - just terrific non-verbal acting that speaks volumes.
Man, what I’d do to have a theatre experience like that again.
I feel like I’ve already seen just about every movie I see these days. I watch them to just tune out occasionally, like a safer version of alcohol. I don’t watch them because it’ll be moving, insightful, exciting, etc. It’s just coarse stimulation.
I really miss movies that left me feeling like I had a significant experience. It happens occasionally, but I feel like it used to be more common. The lion king was amazing. The remake was a kick in the pants.
My aunt used to take me and my sister to the El Capitan theatre to every big Disney tentpole that premiered there in the late 80s and early 90s. I think Lion King is probably still the best movie-going experience I have ever had and ever will have. It was the first one where I was a teenager and that was probably the end of my true childhood and when I started losing interest in stuff like that. I don't think any scene will ever again touch me like James Earl Jones voice booming from the clouds telling Simba to remember who he is. The swell of that Hans Zimmer score still brings tears to my eyes instantly every time I hear it.
He was also Police Chief Thad Green in the Mathnet segments of Square One TV. He only appeared a few times, but was unmistakable when he did. He also participated in early test footage for what would become Sesame Street. Film footage of him reciting the alphabet, in trademark James Earl Jones diction, was one of the things they used to research young children's response to educational programming.
I loved Mathnet and Mathman segments. Still remember the episode where they figured out the hill a van drove up because of the tilt of the water in a glass.
I completely forgot about Mathnet for many years - I'm not sure where I even saw it; My family didn't even have a TV (and I was too young anyway) for it's run. It was a delight when I discovered that my fever dream of a dragnet parody was in fact real. Great show, very funny, and good education.
The first thing that comes up for me when I hear his name (after Star Wars) is Field of Dreams. He made me laugh out loud more than once in that, my favorite baseball movie.
In Clear and Present Danger (1994), James Earl Jones (as Admiral Greer) dies in the middle of the movie. For some reason, and maybe because I have a hard time telling the difference between art and reality, I was fairly certain, for a long time, that the actor himself had died, and I would be regularly surprised when he would appear in new movies.
"You took an oath, if you recall, when you first came to work for me. And I don't mean to the National Security Advisor of the United States, I mean to his boss... and I don't mean the President. You gave your word to his boss: you gave your word to the people of the United States. Your word is who you are."
I doubt anyone could pull the gravitas that he brought to the role of Admiral Greer.
James narrating Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven in the very first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode (2x03), to the backdrop of the quirky and artistic early-Simpsons animation, was such a wonderful union of beautiful cross-generational zeitgeist.
Here's a different reading by him of The Raven (not the one from The Simpsons): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXU3RfB7308 — he chooses to almost ignore the meaning and stick to a recitation, which is great: his voice perfectly brings out the poem's cadence and assonance.
Other readings of The Raven, for comparison: Christopher Walken [1], Vincent Price [2], Christopher Lee (build-up in intensity, unfortunately some background music) [3], Basil Rathbone (the opposite of James Earl Jones: in places almost like prose) [4]
And still, for me, the best reading of that! There are many renditions out there by some very accomplished actors but I've never heard or seen a better one.
My Simpsons memory of him is him coming up from the clouds as Mustafa, Darth Vader, and himself saying "This is CNN". But TIL it wasn't him but Harry Shearer doing an impression.
> Lacking cooperation from the Pentagon in the making of the film, the set designers reconstructed the aircraft cockpit to the best of their ability by comparing the cockpit of a B-29 Superfortress and a single photograph of the cockpit of a B-52 and relating this to the geometry of the B-52's fuselage. The B-52 was state-of-the-art in the 1960s, and its cockpit was off-limits to the film crew. When some United States Air Force personnel were invited to view the reconstructed B-52 cockpit, they said that "it was absolutely correct, even to the little black box which was the CRM."[17] It was so accurate that Kubrick was concerned about whether Adam's team had carried out all its research legally.[17]
Also IIRC it was the inspiration for the Situation Room. The President asked why Kubric could get a big room with all the screens to deal with a crisis, and he didn't have one.
Conditional support for movie production (by the US military) is highly unethical in my view (even though, pragmatically speaking, it is likely a "good" investment of tax dollars...).
Source for that last fact? I was curious which president, so I looked it up and the creation of the Situation Room was ordered by JFK who was assassinated before the movie was even released.
a great movie with absolutely wholly innocent characters unknowingly contributing their own parts to the apocalypse -- I think about that a lot conceptually.
Even the motivations of Gen. Ripper are 'innocent' -- he just happens to have become a delusional psychotic.
I recommend his reading of Frederick Douglass's "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" [1]. The combination of Jones's voice and Douglass's incisive eloquence is really something special.
Saw that movie in the theater in my early teens. When he turns into a snake - watching that on a 30 feet high screen from the front row - scarred me for life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF0Z5g0Wjuk
I totally agree. He played a sadist, and the irony of this movie is that he rarely makes use of what people admire the most: his infamous voice. True uber-alpha in this movie, fantastic performance.
its my favorite movie of all time. the soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission. its got comedy, drama, love, hate, lust, fear, revenge, and all the other feelings a movie can envoke. hey...black lotus, stygian, the best...this better not be haga...I would sell Haga to a slayer such as you?
I saw "Conan" a year or two after I first saw him in "The Sandlot" and lost it when I realized that the same guy that was doing battle with The Terminator was responsible for saving Smalls from a lifetime of being grounded... his voice made him instantly recognizable in spite of the wig and crazy costumes he wore in the former. RIP.
“I did that once when I was traveling cross-country. I used Darth as my handle on the CB radio. The truck drivers would really freak out — for them, it was Darth Vader. I had to stop doing that,” Jones told the Times magazine.
You know he was good when the Lion King remake had a chance to recast the entire movie with actors like Beyoncé and Donald Glover and the casting director was like “well obviously we aren’t changing Mufasa.”
Such an iconic voice. And the fact he got to put voice to so many iconic lines that are hard to imagine coming from anyone else. His speech in Field of Dreams, obviously Vader's "I am your father". Basically all of his lines as Mufasa in Lion King.
I just can't think of any voice from the newer generations of actors/VAs that stands up to what he brought. And while his voice was incredible, he clearly mastered it and gave his lines the maximum impact they could have beyond the simple utterance.
I'm not just talking still alive, I mean the younger generation. Like Morgan Freeman is also an iconic all-time voice. Is there even any actor in their 40s let alone 30s or 20s who have such an iconic voice dropping such powerful monologues?
If we're purely talking voice actors, there are SO many incredible talents to choose from: Mark Hamill as The Joker for sure, Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tara Strong as dozens of characters, etc.
Clancy is an incredible actor in his own right both voice and general. I'll always have a soft spot for him as Kurgan in the first Highlander movie. He was so... unsettling.
I don't know. Mark Hamill is a voice acting chameleon. James Earl Jones was himself, which was great for many roles and impossible to improve upon for some. Their strengths lie on different axes.
At a quarter of a century younger, Keith David has, for decades, expertly conveyed the weight of his characters' words in a wide range of genres.
> I just can't think of any voice from the newer generations of actors/VAs that stands up to what he brought.
Off the top of my head, there's Peter Cullen, Jeff Bennet, Frank Welker, Tim Curry, Tom Kane (prior to his stroke), Phil Lamarr, Mark Hamill, Clancy Brown, and John DiMaggio.
He's done a lot of great work. Selfishly, one of my favorites is narrating the University of Michigan (his alma mater) football hype videos and stadium announcements. Always felt unique and fun.
Here he is in 2009, performing Shakespeare at the (Obama) "White House Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJybA1emr_g (Othello's speech defending himself: [1])
(Incidentally, it was on the same occasion that Lin-Manuel Miranda first announced he was working on a hip-hop album about treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, to some laughter, before performing a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNFf7nMIGnE — the musical came out six years later.)
Tiberian Sun was the first computer game I owned, and his performance was practically the first thing I saw when I finished installing it. At the time, I didn't recognize him, despite being a huge Star Wars fan. https://youtu.be/LT6Y0EIMRiI
I saw him close up filming "Three Fugitives" with Martin Short in Tacoma, WA on a random summer day in 1988. He grinned and gave a peace sign to my friends and I. I don't know if they make them like him any more.
He was 93, and of course this kind of thing is expected and we shouldn't be surprised by news like this, but somehow this news hit hard. I guess after 40, when your own personal heroes pass, part of you dies with them.
I have a vague memory of him reading books on some PBS show in the 80s. Am I misremembering this? I can’t find it in his filmography, though it may have been Fairytale Theater.
When I was 11, I had the incredible opportunity to join him in the recording booth during one of his voice-overs for Bell South. I stuttered badly at the time, but he was incredibly kind and understanding. He took 30 minutes out of his day to sit with a kid he didn't even know and talk about the art of speech—it was life-changing. I’ll never forget that day.
A few months later, we received two large 3x3' posters in the mail. Blown-up photos of us working together that day. In the lower right-hand corner of each, he had signed them, "May the force be with you! JEJ / To my friend, Best Wishes, JEJ (AKA Mustafa)."
What an awesome guy. I just pulled those pictures out, and 29 years later, I’m still filled with awe and immense gratitude.
I had the privelege of meeting James Earl Jones when I was in college. I was taking a theater appreciation class and our professor got us tickets and bakestage passesto a Broadway production of Othello. Mr. Jones was very welcoming and even discussed the meaning of the handkerchief in Othello with me. He was so welcoming and so willing to talk with some college students, I will always remember this moment and share it with anyone sho's willing to listen!
Very sad news. Very good actor - far beyond than just the voice of Vader.
I would not be surprised he is a good bloke behind the camera, and sadly missed by those close to him.
> “The secret is never forgetting that you’re a journeyman actor and that nothing is your final thing, nothing is your greatest thing, nothing is your worst thing,” Jones said. “I still consider myself a novice.”
James Earle Jones declined credit. It was his respect for Prowse. What world do you live in to say that the actor doesn't get to have a say in how he is billed?
The credits were changed for the special editions. He is not in the 'starring' section, but they did list him properly in the cast. https://youtu.be/sIPNormrPwg?t=2m30s
