Crave Online: What did you think of Episode I?
Dan Fogler: Oh, I thought that, you know, I was impressed with the technology, but my initial response was you can hug Chewbacca but you can’t really hug that brrrumsky jowl-frogman. Just the fact that it’s part of the series, you have to respect the epic nature of it, the expanse of it. It’s really Star Wars, there’s several planets, several different environments. It’s intense, dude. I think you have to appreciate it for that, although I love Han Solo and there was something about the first three that were more tangible. You felt like you could climb into the Millenium Falcon and fly. I feel like it’s a trick of the mind that audience members today, they go and it’s a lot easier to trick them with inorganic things, spaceships and buildings but once you get into the organic realm, it's a little tougher. Even with something like King Kong, you're like, "Man, that looks pretty natural to me" but there's always something in the back of your head that's saying, "A computer did that."
Crave Online: Was Leia in the gold bikini a fantasy growing up, and how did Kristen Bell live up?
Dan Fogler: I used to have this fantasy when I was growing up where Princess Leia would be in the slave Leia costume and she would be in a vat of Breyer's ice cream. A recurring dream where I would eat my way to her. I guess I was Jabba in that scenario.
Crave Online: What flavor?
Dan Fogler: Mint chocolate chip. So seeing Kristen brought back a lot of memories. Yeah, she pulled it off, didn't she? Hell yeah.
Crave Online: What was it like interacting with celebrity cameos like William Shatner and Carrie Fisher?
Dan Fogler: That was so cool. I didn't get to work with Shatner although he's like the nicest guy in the world. Seeing Carrie Fisher on set, just with the history that comes along with her, the movie history and the fact that she's Princess Leia, and Billy Dee Williams. You can't help but, especially when you're dealing with people who you used to either have fantasies about or you used to play them when you were a child, it's insane to suddenly be dealing with them as a human being. You become a fanboy. That's the magical thing about this business is that you get to meet your legends and meet these iconic people and hopefully they're really nice people. That's the icing on the cake.
Crave Online: How much more did you get immersed into fandom when you got the role?
Dan Fogler: Oh, it all came flooding back. When I was a kid, I collected all the Star Wars toys and G.I. Joe and Transformers and everything. Then taking the role on, I've often said Hutch could have been me in a parallel universe. If I didn’t get into acting, if I just stayed with my passion, my passion became Star Wars, it could have been very much me as the guy who wanted to very much escape into his childhood. So once we started doing the movie, I frequented comic book stores all the time, got all sorts of toys, started collecting figures, put them all up in my trailer, posters, head to toe, from ceiling to floor. It very much resembled my room when I was a kid growing up. I wanted to have that feeling every time I came back from break.
Crave Online: How did you feel when they asked you back for reshoots under a different director?
Dan Fogler: That was tough. We had formed such a tight knit crew. The best part of that was seeing the cast again. We really had a wonderful time when we made the movie to begin with. Then to hang out again was like camp reunion, but I think we got a lot of funny bits from those reshoots, but it was tough knowing, because I'm friends with Kyle Newman, the director, knowing that that was going on and was out of his control. This was his baby. It was really tough to get up on set every day and try to make funny. It was also sad that there were rumors that they were cutting out the cancer plot because then, if you don't feel that, I feel there's not a lot of heart in a movie where it's just a bunch of guys who love Star Wars. Essentially, it's like, "Okay, a bunch of *ssholes travel cross country and break into this place." It's like why are they doing it? "Well, they just really love Star Wars." No, they're doing it because of the love of their friend. It's a last hurrah and if you get rid of that, it's just silly to me.
Crave Online: Did you reshoot the last scene with Chris Marquette sitting next to you?
Dan Fogler: Yeah. And I think they shot it at different angles in case they were going to put it back in. It was weird. But I think the version that it is now, a hybrid of the two, of the original and the new stuff and with the cancer stuff in, I think it works. I think it works a lot better. Could you have seen it without the cancer plot?
Crave Online: What are some of the good bits from the reshoots?
Dan Fogler: A lot of the stuff that remained was the stuff that was in Lucas's office. There's like a Mexican standoff, that stayed. I think that works.
Crave Online: Did the character of Hutch change from one version to the other?
Dan Fogler: I think I got more of a gut in the reshoots definitely. It was a couple years later, man. But did the character change? No. There was a version where he was just a bit of a jerk. You didn't really know why he was acting the way he was because the cancer plot was missing. So he was sort of a braggart or something. He maintained his character for the most part.
Crave Online: Did you get any response from George Lucas?
Dan Fogler: Not me particularly but I heard that he really digs the film and he put his stamp of approval on it halfway through the process, I think when he saw the original cut. He's been helping us out as a godfather role throughout the process.
Crave Online: What other toy from the '80s should they make for the big screen?
Dan Fogler: You know what was great? Silverhawks. And The Bionic Six. I loved The Bionic Six growing up. That was like a family, like "An all American family got into a car accident. We made them stronger and faster." I had all those toys. Those toys were sturdy. You could really chuck them at your brother.
Crave Online: Did anything go too far for even Star Wars fans?
Dan Fogler: Maybe like a Salacious Crumb reference or two. "Looks like Salacious Crumb." I don't know, I think the die hard fans would really get a lot of the stuff. They really made sure that they catered to [them]. Actually, the original script was filled with all [references], they had to tone that down because it was like they were speaking binary. It was intense. It sounded like another language but I think that we did a really good job of trying to make it palatable for everybody.
Crave Online: If it were Saving Private Ryan, you'd do boot camp. Was there any nerd camp?
Dan Fogler: We hung out with the actual fanboys, all these crews of guys who get together and make their own costumes. They made all the costumes for us in the movie so we went to several parties where we would hang out with them and they would come to set all the time. They would have their own Toyota made into an X-wing fighter with perfect detailing. You sit in side and you'd feel like you're in an X-wing in this Toyota. Yeah, we would go to these parties and I would just sit and watch them observe and there were different even hierarchies within them where you'd have all the guys who were walking around polishing their storm trooper helmets. Just polishing, just making them perfect and I come up to this guy and go, "I'm going to base my guy on this guy. I'm going to base Hutch on this guy." He had his back to me. I was like, "Hey dude, what are you doing?" He was getting stuff from the smorgasbord and he was like, "Aw, man, these guys, they're so nerdy with their storm trooper helmets. I can't believe they all brought their storm trooper helmets." He turns around and he's got a Boba Fett helmet. "Dorks." I was like this guy is perfect. Somehow he was cooler because he had Boba Fett.
Crave Online: When the script has Hutch saying, "Don't press the red button," don't you just know that someone will press the red button?
Dan Fogler: Of course, of course. I had a sense that there was going to be some kind of nitro tank in there. It could've been anything. It could've been some kind of ejection seat. I was happy that it turned into the light speed generator that it did. That was so sweet. All the scenes where we got to basically re-enact certain events from the Star Wars movies were the best. That, being able to say, "Stay on target." Being able to slide and fall into the trash compactor at Lucas's ranch. Awesome. It's so cool. It was like a dream come true. A lot of moments in this movie are like I can't believe I'm getting to pay homage to my favorite moments.
