Sam Witwer

Biography

When Amy Beth Christenson's original concept art of Galen Marek looked strikingly like Sam Witwer, the vice president at the time noted the resemblance due to recognizing Witwer from Battlestar Galactica, so he was contacted to audition.

Witwer was a friend of LucasArts sound director David W. Collins and wished to compete for the role. His audition included a scene where Marek/The Apprentice was assembling a lightsaber through telekinesis in a meditation chamber. Witwer employed his knowledge of Star Wars lore and Marek's backstory to portray the scene, as a character whose real challenge was not fighting, but finding peace in himself to concentrate, and contorted his features accordingly, as if struggling to remember something. Witwer filled the role within the initial auditions.

From there, he became the complete basis for the main character's voice and appearance in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. His likeness was created through motion capture for the game to build the character's appearance and range of facial expressions. Witwer's performance was recorded on HD cameras (as were all the actors who worked on the game). While the game was in production, Witwer only knew his character as "Starkiller." Witwer also voiced Galen Marek (known only as "The Apprentice") in Soulcalibur IV. Witwer returned to play Starkiller in the sequel Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. For this character, he served in the same capacity as before by providing his voice and likeness to the main character. Witwer also voiced Palpatine in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and gave his voice and likeness to the imperfect genetic replicas and the Dark Apprentice in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.

Afterwards, Witwer appeared on the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series as the voices of the Son and Maul.

Witwer took over voicing Palpatine from Tim Curry for the second season of Star Wars Rebels along with voicing W1-LE and an Imperial Technician.

Witwer voiced various characters in , including several stormtroopers, an announcer and a First Order officer.

Witwer expressed an interest in being in the live-action TV series, presumably reprising his role as Galen Marek.

On May 27, 2020, it was announced on StarWars.com and The Star Wars Show that Witwer would be portraying the voice of the dark side in the web game series Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge.

In addition to his work in Star Wars, he frequently competes in Star Wars trivia competitions.

Sources

Appearances