Count Dooku actor tried something new in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi

if you a war of stars Fan, talking to legendary voice actor Corey Burton can be a little scary. Still further The clone warsBurton was the voice of vicious Sith Lord Count Dooku, as well vicious Bounty Hunter Cad Bane. None of the characters are someone you’d like to meet down a dark alley. (Or bright road for that matter.) This year, Burton reprized both roles to great effect: Bane for Boba Fett’s book, and now Dooku is in it Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. io9 talked to him about the latter.

in the Dooku’s arc of three episodesFirst we see a completely new version of the character: a young, heroic Jedi Master with a young apprentice named Qui-Gon Jinn, years before the story we already know. In the second episode, Dooku starts cracking at his formerDear Jedi Order, and In the end, we see him turn completely to the dark side and line up the Dooku attack of the Clone warriors and more important, The clone warswhere Burton provided the voice.

io9 spoke to Burton last week and was surprised when the actor got the call tales of jedi, his first instinct was to change his dooku. “My thought was, let’s make him like a young kind of Michael York, a young Shakespearean guy,” he said. “Foresighted, ambitious but, you know, positive. And so I thought about doing a young, bright version. Kind of on a new kind of version of him.”

Little did Burton know that once filming began, his choice for the younger Dooku wasn’t what series writer and creator Dave Filoni had in mind. “I started and said, ‘Oh, well, how do you feel about playing him so young?'” Burton said. “And I demonstrated. He said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, just do Dooku. Our voices don’t change that much, if at all, from young adulthood. Just play the character.”

This direction was good for Burton, a veteran of the medium who was unlike him Tales of the Jedi co-star Ashley EcksteinShe doesn’t like to get involved too much war of stars lore. “When I’m performing, and especially on something this big, it’s all under wraps. There are no spoilers [and] I don’t want to spoil it either,” Burton said. “I like being in the moment when the character is in. So I don’t want to know anything other than what the character knows within the context of those particular scenes. I don’t want that to affect me knowing that Obi-Wan and Anakin are planning something.”

What he does is rely heavily on Filoni and the team around him. “I’m very isolated,” Burton said. “I feel very much in the skin of this character when I play her. I don’t think of much else. And again, with Dave in my ear and in my head, I try to connect through him as closely as possible to what the author had in mind. And I think we did it together.”

Although Burton prefers not to delve into Dooku’s backstory or think about links attack of the Clone warriors, he is passionate about the show and relished the opportunity to expand on a character he has been voicing for so many years. “I’m proud to be a craftsman, a craftsman. And every character and every production is that team effort,” he said. “Dave is the master storyteller. And by serving that, hopefully I’ll get that to the mic. And everything fits together and forms something very special. Something greater than the sum of its parts.”

Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi is now on Disney+

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