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Anthony Daniels - Lord Horatio Nelson

Anchors away
  What was your reaction when you were first offered the part of Nelson?

Being offered the part of Nelson was kind of wacky, because I thought, 'Well, he had one eye and one arm,' and I thought 'Umm, I've been through this losing an arm before' (in Star Wars) and that wasn't too comfortable, but I reckoned if he could do it then I could do it.

So I looked him up on the web and I saw I wasn't too far from his age, or he wasn't too far from mine, and I thought it was pretty neat and a bit of a laugh really.

Would you have preferred to tackle the role of Byron?

I think possibly, until we started, I thought I was more of a Byron - more soulful and poetic. But frankly, because it's audio only, there is nothing to stop me being swashbuckling. He'd only got one arm, but you can't see it's only me on radio, so hopefully I sound a bit convincing. Time will tell.

Armless?
  What would you least like to lose in a battle?

I think losing a leg would be inconvenient to say the least. A foot would be half way there of course. I think to be bipedal is fairly basic to getting around.

I was once in a very strange movie where I did have to lose my right hand, and being right handed, that was really awkward. I was haranguing them for not making me lose my left hand!

Apparently losing a body part is pretty traumatic for anybody, whether it's a little finger nicked off by your local Yakuza [tattooed Japanese gangsters who sometimes cut off one of their own fingers as a test of loyalty] or whatever.

I keep my hands to myself because I don't want to lose body parts. Sometimes when I've been scuba diving I say [to other divers], 'No no, don't point like that,' because this big grouper is going to come and go 'gulp'. And so I'm pretty careful.

I would think you need to be mobile, so I want to keep my feet until last, and therefore the legs that attach them to the rest. Basically I'm a coward. I don't want to lose anything.

Scary stories
  Do you enjoy ghost stories?

I think every kid really enjoys ghost stories because it's a bit of the unknown isn't it? It's a bit like science fiction, a bit like space travel, it's something out there that you don't know about and as a kid it's nice to hear these things. Providing you're safely in bed with your mum or dad telling you the story, then it's cool. It's a little tougher to be brave when it's just you.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I'd be a hostage to fortune to say I don't believe in ghosts. I don't think I've ever actually seen one, but certainly I think I'm the same as anybody - I get the odd tingle as I go down the odd dark corridor at night. I think most of us are a little afraid of the dark, and there must be a reason behind that.

Living in the past
  If you lived in the 19th Century, what would you miss about the 21st?

I wouldn't miss the traffic that we have to suffer now.

I think one of the things it's easy to forget [is that] the plumbing wasn't totally brilliant and hygiene was a bit iffy. They were pretty good at it, but food hygiene, I think, is pretty important.

My experience [of the past] is mainly through watching movies and TV, so I guess it's not real anyway. I suppose on the movies we get the sanitised version really. I'm happy where I am.

Spectral sparkage
  How are you and your fellow ghosts sparking off each other during the recording?

Its great fun to have the other ghosts to play off, because we are different personalities.

You get a script and you sit at home wading through it, to be honest, because you're trying to make sense of it and the stage directions and so on.

It's only at the read through, the first day we all meet, all a little nervous, [that] it comes together. Somebody jumps in and wham! you're off. Suddenly it's fun and suddenly that page does make sense and your lines make more sense.

You see us in the studio and we're all just falling about with laughter at each other, at ourselves. There's something about radio that's really relaxing. Nobody gets a close-up, there's no drama. You just lean into the mic, it's you, somebody else leans in, there's nobody saying, 'Here is my close-up Mr DeMille,' and therefore it's relaxing and a riot.

Young talent
  What's it been like working with Amber?

Amber just amazes me. I won't tell you how old she is because that's her business, - but she's very young, and she has taken all of us older and younger actors into the palm of her hands and carried us from here to here to here.

She organises it all without a hint of apparent effort, without any kind of qualms, worries, whatever. She's given us all such confidence. We'd actually be lunatics in this show, and I find it quite remarkable that she has this talent at this young an age, this dedication and this ability. It will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.

Just as long as she takes me with her. Do you hear that Amber? I'm coming too, it's you and me all the way!

Animated voices
  Do you like voice work, as opposed to the physicality of other forms of acting?

I think most voice actors will tell you [that] you have to put a lot of animation into your voice.

All right, if it's a commercial for some kind of sleep tonic, then you don't get animated, but normally you have to put a lot of your presence through the microphone because that's your camera, and if you're flaccid about it nothing comes through and you have a dead thing.

And then, because animation is not human, it doesn't have a soul if you have a dead voice - it's basically a one-dimensional image and the whole thing's a bit crippling.

I have been involved with one or two experiences in my life that ended up a bit like that. I won't say what they are, but of course the animation I really remember was playing Legolas in the animated version of The Lord of the Rings, many, many years ago now.

I can't actually remember how I played it, but then I saw the animation and nobody told me that I was a blonde. Of course I would have played it totally differently, because I had black hair.

Good ghosts?
  What do you make of the choice of ghosts for the story?

I think what's neat about choosing Byron and Boadicea and Nelson is that they actually come from very different backgrounds - they all have really unique personalities and a unique history.

It's kind of neat that Byron was a slightly heroic figure but wildly artistic and poetic, whereas Boadicea [was] a woman and really gung-ho. There's a statue outside the Houses of Parliament in London, a tribute to her with the knives on the wheels of her chariot and so on. Then you had Nelson, who around the corner is right up this big pole in Trafalgar Square, and drives the French nuts, because it's all to do with them losing the Battle of Trafalgar.

There is something about Nelson - first the arm goes, then the eye goes. You wonder how much had to be shot and cut away before he went, 'I give in.' So they're pretty ballsy characters, all three of them.

Which other historical figures might work well in the series?

Alfred the Great? William the Conqueror wasn't English of course, but he ended up running the place. England's been bashed about by quite a few people, and it's kind of neat to keep them slightly back in history so they have a sense of the exotic rather than being too modern. Churchill would be great but he was modern day. We don't want any of that.

Robot wars
  Are you still fond of playing C-3PO in the Star Wars saga?

Oh, Threepio was a strange thing that happened in spite of myself, because I didn't want the part, and wasn't interested in science fiction. And then, you know, for nearly 30 years now he's been my almost constant companion.

One of the reasons I think I could come up with his voice was because I had done a lot of work with the BBC when I first started acting. As a member of the repertory company you're asked to do all sorts of weird stuff with your vocal chords and the rest of your body, and if you watch us [record Ghosts], watch us shooting these scenes, people are not just standing there reading the script like that - they are using their bodies, because that changes the way your voice happens.

It's very exciting, but it's kind of fun. The thing I would hate is if somebody began to say, 'Now wait a minute, that Lord Nelson person, he's sounding awfully like C-3PO from Star Wars.' That would be a shame, but Threepio would be equally shocked if he suddenly sounded like Lord Nelson. So you do have to keep these things separate.

Electronic music
  What's been the greatest perk of playing C-3PO?

One of the magic things about walking through these studios [at Maida Vale] today was just hearing a symphony orchestra rehearsing.

The urge for me to rush in there, kill the conductor and take over the baton [was great] because once, in about 1977, they invited me as C-3PO to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra at the Albert Hall in London, as an encore to a John Williams evening of music.

It was the most extraordinary experience to walk out there as C-3PO, to the extent that I completely forgot that I was Threepio, because the audience reaction - eight thousand people all around you - was so humungous. I stood there, not petrified, just going 'Wow,' and then must have stood there a few seconds until, 'Oh wait a minute, I'm Threepio', and then carried on and did the whole thing.

We did it a couple of times, because to be faced by 80 plus orchestral musicians, waiting for you to do 'Wooh,' (mimes waving baton) and then they go... Oh, the power! It was magic. And that was just one of the great experiences I've had.