Having made his (uncredited) film debut as a boy jumping into freezing water in the 1958 Titanic epic “A Night to Remember,” Jeremy Bulloch was well acquainted with suffering for his art. Though his acting career appeared to be on the rise throughout the 1960s as he landed significant roles in movies like Peter Yates’ “Summer Holiday” and Alvin Rakoff’s “Hoffman,” by the late 1970s, he was mostly back to bit parts.
Then George Lucas came calling with the most thankless role of a lifetime: the ruthless bounty hunter Boba Fett in “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back.”
Though Bulloch’s screen presence was driven by Joe Johnston’s masterful design work, he at least got to wear that iconic suit, right? Well, that wasn’t much fun either. During a 2013 Reddit AMA, Bulloch revealed that his visor fogged up all the time, while his jetpack was a bear to lug around.
Worst of all, when it came to getting out of the suit, he felt like he had to live up to the badassness of the character. According to Bulloch:
“Really, it was like being a statue, just standing there. It would get hotter and hotter. Every time you had a break, you were waiting for someone to say, ‘Can we have a break, please? It’s terribly hot in this costume!’ But you see, Boba Fett can’t do that. No, he will stand there until someone takes him out of the costume. You don’t want to be the sissy.”
Okay, it ain’t exactly digging ditches, but if you ever dreamed of strutting around in that battle-scarred armor, know that you’d look a heck of a lot cooler than you’d feel.