THE PHANTOM REUNION

 

Collectormania 15 - Milton Keynes - 07.06.09

 

 

By Ian Trussler

 

 

Collectormania 15 in its new venue of MK Dons Stadium (awful venue) had a smattering of Star Wars guests, constituting a small Episode One reunion. Most of the guests had never done a fan convention/signing before and hopefully weren't put off by the cold and damp conditions in which they found themselves.

 

Although they were overshadowed by the presence of Mr. Leonard Nimoy and his huge line of adoring fans, they did seem to be doing fairly steady business through the day.

 

What follows is details of information gathered during my chats with the Star Wars guests.

 

Toby Longworth

 

Toby provided the voices of Gragra the Gorgmonger on Tatooine and of Lott Dod in the senate scenes on Coruscant (Silas Carson was the physical embodiment of Lott Dod).

 

He was already a huge fan of the saga and was thrilled when he got the call from his agent to go in and meet for the roles. He was at the time primarily known for his vocal work, particularly in radio plays.

 

Toby spent 3 or 4 days recording his vocal performances at Abbey Road studios in London, directed by the maker himself, Mr. George Lucas. He had great fun doing the recordings as present at the same time were Lewis Macleod (Sebulba) and Peter Serafinowicz (Darth Maul).

 

At this first session the dialogue for Lott Dod he recorded was less than what we hear on screen as George had decided to shorten the scene by deleting a segment of dialogue. However many weeks later Toby was recalled and went to meet George and Rick McCallum at a house in Hampstead, London to record the extra line as George had changed his mind about the deletion and reinstated the scene to its full length.

 

Therefore everything Toby recorded for the movie made the final version of the movie.

 

It was a pleasure to meet Toby, who was very enthusiastic about his part in Star Wars and genuinely seemed to enjoy meeting the fans.

 

Oliver Walpole

 

Oliver is the son of Prequel Set Decorator Peter Walpole and it was via this connection that, at the age of nine, he originally auditioned for the part of Kitster, Anakin's best friend on Tatooine. The role of Kitster ultimately went to Dhruv Chanchani but Oliver was offered the small role of Seek, one of Anakin's other playmates.

 

Oliver spent many weeks hanging around the Episode One set with both his father and the other kids who he appeared on screen with. He vividly remembers the scorching heat whilst doing his scenes in Tunisia. As well as appearing and having dialogue with Anakin whilst preparing the Pod Racer, Oliver also appeared in the scene of Anakin fighting Greedo, which was deleted from the movie but appears on the DVD.

 

Oliver has not seen any of the kids from the movie until this event when he saw Megan Udall for the first time in 12 years.

 

We talked about the other children in the Pod Racer scene and he stated that the older, plump girl in the scene was indeed Katie Lucas as she was introduced to him as George's daughter.This seems to bring about some confusion around this character as the role of Amee is credited to Jenna Green on the movies credits.

 

Now 21, Oliver has just finished Film School and is working in the world of production, currently doing music videos. His father Peter is still working in the business as a set decorator.

 

Megan Udall

 

Megan was only seven years old when she first starting attending the set of Episode One, her mother was Unit Nurse, Jeanie Udall. Her Mum had taken her to set originally to be a playmate for Jake Lloyd and his sister Madison. It was through this on set friendship that she got the opportunity to play the small role of Melee, whilst out in Tunisia. She only filmed the one scene we see in the movie.

 

Being so young she doesn't remember a great deal about the filming other than it was hot. She was around set for the whole location shoot and a lot of the studio shoot as obviously her mother was constantly present as Unit Nurse.

 

She was very friendly and seemed to be really enjoying her first ever show and is thinking of appearing at more in the future.

 

Above image: Ian with Megan (top), Oliver (middle) and Toby (bottom).