Joonas Suotamo

Beasley Digital

Joonas Suotamo, who plays Chewbacca in the new Star Wars films, tells us about going to Penn State and taking over the role of everyone's favorite Wookie.

Transcript

00:00He's been in the last few Star Wars films that have been out.

00:04Not only Solo, which is a Star Wars story, which is out now.

00:08Star Wars The Last Jedi, or at least we have a screening tonight.

00:10Screening tonight, yes.

00:11And Star Wars The Force Awakens.

00:14And Casey has nicknamed him Nubaka.

00:16Yes.

00:17Instead of Chewbacca, the Nubaka.

00:19But he's actually been at it for a while.

00:21And I'm going to do my best with his name.

00:22He instructed me properly on how to say this.

00:25But Ioannis, or Ioannis.

00:29Close?

00:30Ioannis.

00:31Now the last name, forget it, man.

00:33Suotamo?

00:34Suotamo.

00:35Suotamo.

00:37Ioannis.

00:38One for one.

00:39There you go.

00:39How are you, Ioannis?

00:40I am doing great.

00:42Thanks for having me on the show.

00:43And yeah.

00:43Our pleasure.

00:44Yeah.

00:45Listen, so you are Finnish.

00:48You're from Finland.

00:49I went there last year and just absolutely, positively loved that country.

00:56It's a great country.

00:56Yeah.

00:57I flew into Kierna and then we drove up to Narvik and just, it was stunning.

01:03Okay.

01:03Well, are those places from Finland or is that Norway?

01:06No, Kierna, that's in Sweden.

01:09And then we drove up to the Fjorden, which I thought was in Narvik.

01:14It must have been, you must have been in Sweden and Norway, perhaps.

01:19Oh my God.

01:20But if that's the case.

01:21No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:22Okay.

01:22Finland is just like these places.

01:24No, no, no.

01:25I went to Finland the last, not this past Swedish trip, but the trip before.

01:29Here it goes.

01:30We loved having you.

01:31We loved having you.

01:33It is great.

01:33Listen, on behalf of the rebel empire, we are so sorry.

01:38No, I took a, I took a boat into Helsinki.

01:41Right.

01:41And that's what we did.

01:42Now, there you go.

01:43We went through the, oh, now I can't even pronounce it.

01:47The Arlapag, the Archipelago.

01:49Archipelago.

01:50Oh, yeah.

01:51I'm leaving.

01:51Yeah.

01:52That's right.

01:52Hey, do you know Kimo Timonen?

01:55Hey, listen though.

01:56We loved Madrid.

01:58It was great.

01:59And, of course, Nigeria is just beautiful.

02:07Yeah.

02:07A lot of these places.

02:08It's a light growing up there.

02:10So, you are Finnish.

02:12Thanks for having me, guys.

02:13Yes.

02:14You're playing Chewbacca.

02:16That's correct.

02:17Never forget this interview.

02:19Did you, in fact, go to Penn State?

02:21Yeah.

02:22Oh, my.

02:23Ohio State was good.

02:24I was just kidding.

02:25I went to Penn State.

02:27We are Penn State.

02:28Yes.

02:28It was lovely, good years in 05 and 08 when I was there.

02:33Played, graduated with a film degree.

02:35Played for the basketball team.

02:36Power forward and center?

02:38Center and, yeah, semi-power forward.

02:40Okay.

02:41Semi-power forward.

02:43So, that's very cool, man.

02:44So, you had a couple of years in here and then you played professional basketball in Finland

02:49as well.

02:50Went back to Finland and then, yeah.

02:52All your life reading about you.

02:55Massive Star Wars fan.

02:57Loved it.

02:57Loved the whole deal.

02:58And then, but just by happenstance, they're looking for a new Chewbacca.

03:03You send a, what, a video, I believe?

03:05Exactly.

03:06Or J.J. Abrams sees it?

03:07Yeah.

03:08Yeah, exactly.

03:09Boom.

03:09And take us from there to Force Awakens.

03:12You go in?

03:13Well, Force Awakens, yeah.

03:14I get in and I'm told I'm going to meet Harrison Ford, my all-time hero.

03:21Right.

03:21And I tell him, listen, Harrison, you know, I wasn't even born when you guys made these movies.

03:29He must have loved that.

03:30And he did not love it.

03:31And it was really close that I was going to be replaced.

03:35Like, they had to find a replacement for a replacement.

03:38No, but we worked together with Peter Mayhew, the original Chewbacca actor on that one.

03:43So he was in, was he in a few scenes or was he giving you direction or, so you, because

03:49there are scenes in the Force Awakens, Peter Mayhew is not very mobile and you're, and Chewbacca's

03:54running up ladders and stuff like that and that couldn't have been him.

03:57Well, we just, we just say that we co-worked on that.

04:00Okay, all right, all right, all right.

04:02It was great because he was, well, he created the character.

04:06He, he's a, a unique physical attributes and everything, uh, made Chewbacca to be what

04:13he is, which is a very creature-like, unworldly character.

04:17And that's what I'm trying to do when I'm in this Chewbacca suit.

04:20I try to act like a, like a creature and not like, as myself, as the Big Ten all-defensive

04:26person.

04:28But from all your years living in Sweden, did I hear recently that Chewbacca is, the, the

04:35word is that he's, like, a couple hundred years old or something along those lines?

04:39Is that what we find out?

04:40Exactly.

04:41Take out your license.

04:42He's, he's, he's very active still.

04:44He's, doesn't, hasn't let the age define him.

04:46Yes.

04:47I assume the Wookiee retirement is what, 500?

04:50Wookiee retirement is about, at the 350 mark.

04:53Okay, all right.

04:54He's got a few ways to go.

04:55He's still going, and you, you can actually go into, you can have an origin, because there,

05:00there, there are two tabs running.

05:01There's the Star Wars, and then there's a Star Wars story series.

05:04And, and you're, you're in, you're in, in both of those.

05:07Working with this crew, with Woody Harrelson and with, uh, uh, um, Amelia Clark.

05:12Yes, all of them.

05:14I mean, so they're all, I was watching an interview with Woody Harrelson, who was, so he's obviously

05:19much older than you are, but there he is.

05:21He's fanboying on the, on the set.

05:24What was it like working with him?

05:25Oh, I, he's just, uh, he's just so honest and such a playful personality.

05:30I mean, we, we had so much fun throwing snowballs at each other on top of the mountains in Italy,

05:35and just, we were having a blast shooting this film.

05:38I can't imagine.

05:38I want to ask, uh, Jonas, how you, how you're directed in this, because clearly Chewbacca

05:44has dialogue.

05:45Uh, we obviously can't understand it, but it's implied and interpreted as to what he says.

05:50So, how is that written in your script?

05:52Does it say Chewbacca acts surprised, or Chewbacca pretends like there's danger?

05:59You know, I mean, how is that written for you on the script?

06:02I think, I think, uh, the cast is Larry and Lawrence.

06:05I mean, John and, and Larry, the legendary screenwriter, Larry Caston.

06:09Caston, yeah.

06:09They, they, because I worked with Larry in Force Awakens, and he knew what, what, what, what

06:14I bring to the role, and, uh, so they were very confident that I could play these beats

06:19and play this story.

06:20It's important.

06:21And, uh, and they wrote even lines for me, because they wanted my, my Wookiee English,

06:26which I, which I ended up with, to be very specific, and even though, uh, the actors couldn't

06:33hear exactly what I said, but the meaning was always there, like, let's go.

06:37Oh, seriously.

06:39That's what we were wondering.

06:40Yeah.

06:41So you actually do a little Wookiee.

06:43I do, and in fact, I do.

06:44I, I did so well that they had, um, my, my voice was still there in the very final moments

06:50of the mix until they found that bear sound to replace it.

06:53But I'm, uh, today I'm competing with bears, basically.

06:58And, uh, give us your best Wookiee.

07:00If you know.

07:03Wow.

07:03That's good.

07:04Damn good.

07:05Peter Mayhew never did that, did he?

07:07No.

07:07Uh, but, but he didn't have four, uh, he didn't have, uh, 31 years of practice.

07:11That's true.

07:12I'm not saying it's a bad thing or something like that, but I.

07:14I literally thought you would just be opening your mouth for a certain amount of time and

07:18nothing coming out.

07:19So you're actually saying some of the dialogue and they just obviously change it when they

07:24go back and do editing.

07:25Exactly.

07:25And, and the, and the fact is I'm having a ball.

07:28It's like a theater performance for me.

07:29Stepping on set, seeing all the, especially on the first days, like the crew is just like

07:34seeing me after a long break.

07:35Yeah.

07:36I'm having a ball with this.

07:37To me, I want the visitors on set, like little kids, especially to hear the authentic Chewbacca

07:42or closest.

07:43Sure.

07:44So you were directed by Ron Howard.

07:46Exactly.

07:46And there was another, I guess, a creative team at the beginning and they parted ways.

07:51So you must've been like, Oh my God.

07:53But then you hear Ron Howard's coming on board.

07:55I was always confident.

07:56The script, you gotta understand the script by Larry Kasdan and John Kasdan was always great.

08:00Always great.

08:00And there were some creative differences, but then Ron came on board and just ran with

08:04it.

08:05And he's been an actor.

08:06He's been a director.

08:07And a lifelong friend of George Lucas.

08:09Exactly.

08:09Yeah.

08:09And he just took this great story about these characters who are interesting, multi-layered

08:14and, and, and delivered this fun film for us.

08:16And my goal was to always, uh, uh, for this film.

08:20And I was excited about it because you get to see this other Chewbacca that you've never

08:24seen, like a side of him that you'd never seen before.

08:26More, more active, more, more like the stories that, that we've heard all these movies ago.

08:31Yeah.

08:31And, uh, and, uh, I wanted to bring that and see, and to do that with respect to the original

08:36trilogy, Chewbacca, who's more laid back and more used to the smuggling, uh, to show the

08:43beginnings.

08:43Yeah.

08:43Exactly.

08:44And I, and it was very interesting.

08:45And I, I, I think people, uh, liked it, the LA premiere and, uh, I hope they like it

08:50when they, when the film opens Thursday, we have a screening tonight and unfortunately we got

08:54to wrap things up, but I wanted to congratulate you on, uh, you, you had a baby this year,

08:57you and your fiance, so congratulations on being a parent.

09:00Thank you so much.

09:01Uh, baby Baca, I believe is what you're calling him.

09:03Baby Baca is, uh, right now he's at the Ritz staring at the skyline of Philadelphia.

09:08There he goes.

09:09Loving it.

09:09So he's, and I understand he was 60 pounds, nine feet, right?

09:14Exactly.

09:15You're 6'10"?

09:15Uh, I am, I'm 6'11 and a half.

09:18Okay.

09:18So we'll round that up to seven feet.

09:20All right.

09:21Well, welcome back to Philadelphia and congratulations on your success.

09:24That's really cool.

09:25Thank you so much.

09:26And they love you in Norway, by the way.

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