David W. Collins

Biography

In 2006, Collins recorded death yells of stormtroopers for the LucasArts video game LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy because the LucasArts sound department did all of the vocalizations for the game at the time. The sound effects were eventually placed in the old LucasArts archive.

Collins's most prominent Star Wars voice roles include PROXY in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Darth Maul in Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, General Grievous in Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, and the battle droids in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron and Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron.

Collins has served as a host at Star Wars Celebrations IV, V, and VI. At Celebration VI in August 2012, he was inducted as an honorary member of the 501st Legion. He also performed the role of Han Solo in the live performance of Star Wars: Smuggler's Gambit, an original radio-style drama exclusive to the event.

Collins voiced several characters in the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, including several stormtroopers, Resistance soldiers and a Hangar Control Officer aboard the Finalizer. He also provided additional voices in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Collins was the sound designer for the 2020 film The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special. For every trilogy era that Rey Skywalker time travelled to, Collins used specific sounds from that era to keep the authenticity. For example, the scene of the trench run used sounds from A New Hope, scenes on the planets Dagobah and Hoth used sounds from The Empire Strikes Back, the podracing scene on Tatooine used podracer sounds from The Phantom Menace, the scene on Exegol used lightning sounds from The Rise of Skywalker, and the sound of Din Djarin's blaster pistol from the The Mandalorian was used for his cameo. Collins also found several vocalizations of Chewbacca's family from The Star Wars Holiday Special in the Skywalker Sound Library. He used those samples in the scene when Chewbacca's family showed up on the Millennium Falcon. Collins also found stormtrooper death yells in the old LucasArts archive, and he incorporated the yells in the scene in which Rey and Darth Vader duel while travelling through portals and various troopers are flying around.

Collins acted as a sound effects editor for the series The Book of Boba Fett. He used an ARP 2600 synthesizer to create the sounds for the RX-Series droid acting as a card dealer for the premiere episode.

He appeared at Celebration Anaheim in 2022, where he hosted a Star Wars: The Bad Batch panel on May 29.

Sources

Appearances