Known best for his pratfalls whether it be playing Ham Gravy in Popeye (1980) or entertaining kids the world over as Mr. Noodle in the Elmo segments on Sesame Street, Bill Irwin has enjoyed being a charismatic character actor of the stage and screen for close to 35 years. But in a career full of memorable physical performances, he's currently getting high marks playing a character in which we never see him act.
In Christopher Nolan's latest polarizing epic, Interstellar, Irwin plays TARS, the wise-cracking monolith-like robot Marine who, following the end of wars in the world, has joined the small team that's left at NASA tasked with finding a livable planet so civilization can leave a dying earth. But in the vein of the sci-fi classics Nolan grew up on—particularly Star Wars—the director didn't just want an actor to voice TARS, but someone who could become the artificial intelligence.
That's right, along with the voice of TARS, Irwin did many of the robot's movements and was even involved early on when Nolan and his team were crafting what it would look like. Here Irwin pulls the curtain back on Nolan's inner workings and reveals to us a first-hand account of the creation of the film's most unlikely star.
ESQUIRE.COM: How did you get the role?
BILL IRWIN: I got a call from my representative saying, "Yeah, Christopher Nolan wants to talk to you on the phone about this thing they are going to start working on." The next thing I knew I was on the phone with Chris Nolan. I thought, okay, that was a fun conversation, I guess that will maybe lead to some meetings or a reading, something down the line. But the next day I was told to get my passport ready because Chris Nolan wants me to do this and it's going to be time to go to Canada soon.
ESQ: What did Nolan say to you?
BI: In that first conversation it was that I would be an articulated machine that would be made up of four plinths, I believe was the word he used, and he's explaining this thing that's four jointed pieces that can move different and each one is infinitely jointed within itself. We never used the word puppetry, we never used the word robot. One of the main concrete things he said was: "The normal way to do this, and it would be much cheaper, is to have an actor come in at the end and just do four or five days of dialogue. But I don't want to do it that way, I want the actor there in the scenes." And, of course, to an actor that's both mysterious but very exciting. But he made it clear that it wasn't just a voice, it was giving the machine life and playing the scenes with the rest of the cast.
ESQ: Seeing he wanted you to be this character, not voice only, were you involved in the evolution of designing TARS?
BI: Yes. That was the next stage of things. Before going to Canada [to begin shooting], for a couple of months I was going back and forth to Burbank to the special effects shop where they were starting to build things and do prototypes to match what it was Chris and his collaborators had in their mind's eye. I got there and they were hinging together these pieces of sheet metal and gradually I got paired up with a wonderful stunt player named Mark Fichera and he and I were assigned to hang out in the shop and take anything they would give us and work on how this machine would move and look and feel. Chris and his team would come by and check on things, we would shove this thing around and show the different ways it could move. Gradually it got heavier and heavier as it took on the appearance of what they wanted it to look like on camera.
"There's video that I hope Chris includes whenever he does a making-of that shows me or Mark [Fichera] behind TARS pushing it and making it walk, giving it character. And then we were digitally erased in post."
ESQ: Was the design always this rectangular form?
BI: When I first went out to Burbank I saw a plastic model that somebody had made. It looked like four popsicle sticks that were jointed together in different ways. It was fun to play with, but it was flatter than the final model. When it took shape at first there was a bit more dimension than the plastic model. But it got heavier as it evolved. The designers, Nathan Crowley and Paul J. Franklin, gave it a beautiful sheen. I remember the first day the question of how does it walk came up and Chris Nolan said, "Either it's going to have to have a series of little steps in front of it or it's going to need retractable feet," and everyone got the tools out and worked on it and sparks are flying and they made it with retractable feet [at the bottom of the two outside pillars]. At first it was something where you could squeeze a cable and the feet would come out but as it got heavier they used a compressed air system [for the feet to come out].
ESQ: So how did you operate TARS, was it remote control?
BI: No. Wouldn't that have been great? [Laughs] It was very visceral and exciting and thank God I had these stunt guys to work with because they were younger and stronger. If we wanted it to walk forward, we operated it from behind, strapped into it from various ways so your body could push it. There was an ankle attachment and a chest one, and we got good at getting in and out of it quickly because you didn't want to stand there for long hours strapped to it. But we operated it about 18 inches behind it. More than that got too attenuated and if you got closer than that your nose was right up against it and you couldn't articulate or see where you were going. There's video that I hope Chris includes whenever he does a making-of that shows me or Mark behind TARS pushing it and making it walk, giving it character. And then we were digitally erased in post. It's funny, there were shots when Chris would say to me, "Bill, if you could duck your head you'd save us $10,000."
ESQ: What was the hardest scene to do as TARS?
BI: There were scenes in the spacecraft where TARS is sort of standing by, as a lieutenant waiting, but he does some moving and dialogue and in doing that he's repositioning himself to face certain characters. So you have this block of metal but a very human-like programmed intelligence. That was the fun and the challenge and the sweat and tears. You would work this thing forward toward Matthew McConaughey and then say a line—there was a mic attached to me—and retreat so it would be better for whoever I was talking to, or swivel quickly and show that you aren't talking to McConaughey but Anne Hathaway's character.
ESQ: The personality of TARS is evident once they go into space. Like the 2001 reference when he says, "After I blast you out of the air lock." Was that all on the page, or did you come up with any of it?
BI: I would love to take credit for them but they were pure Chris Nolan. Though there was a little improv. It just so happened it was on my first day of work. I'm doing the scene with Matthew where he's putting back together TARS toward the end of the movie. We had some written dialogue but people would come and whisper in my ear, "Chris wants you to say this." I would say them and I'd also throw out some ideas of my own. Matthew and I came up with the "Knock, knock" line. But 98 percent is pure Nolan.
ESQ: People love to pick apart and analyze Nolan's films. For Interstellar, one argument is that TARS and his fellow Marines should have done the missions themselves, not humans. Do you have any thoughts on that?
BI: That's really interesting because there is some dialogue from Matt Damon's character about that. My father worked for a company around the second World War called Douglas Aircraft, it was eventually bought by Boeing, and he was involved with NASA and early space missions. The argument was always, "Do we send people?" And the pilots were like, "Yeah, you gotta send people!" And other people thought it was cheaper and much more efficient if you don't send people and that debate is still going on with the current space program. Nolan throws you in the middle of it. You wouldn't have much of a movie if you didn't have people.
ESQ: I don't know, maybe I would want to watch a TARS movie.
BI: [Laughs] He'll need a girlfriend. But my father always felt it had to be people for the reasons Matt Damon gives in the movie.
ESQ: The will to live.
BI: The will to live and the ability to improvise in the way that only humans can.
ESQ: Did you get a sense that people were going to be into this character?
BI: You always have a hope, but it was a weird gig because I'm sort of in the movie and sort of not. I'm in almost every scene, which was clear that's what Chris wanted, but often they'd say, "Bill, there isn't enough room for you here. Can we put you just outside of the space capsule with a helmet so you can hear the dialogue and speak?" Or, "Can we get you off the scaffolding?" So sometimes I was doing dialogue but I was far away, like by the snack table.
ESQ: But you didn't have to go to hair and makeup. You just show up to work as you're dressed.
BI: They were very nice to me. I was given an incredibly tight gray unitard that I had to wear and a ski mask with only slits for eyes, but gradually that went by the wayside. As long as I had a gray sweatshirt and pants I was okay because they had to erase me. Gray seemed to be the key. But it was great, no hair or makeup and eventually no costume.
ESQ: I hope they release behind-the-scenes footage. I'd love to see you in action.
BI: It would make for interesting sequences. You really had to lean into it to make TARS move. And funny enough, and to my surprise, someone told me that Paul Franklin, the special effects editor, said that what you see in the final cut is 80 percent what we did in camera, he only added 20 percent with effects.
ESQ: I'm going to make a left turn here for the last question. You've done so many great parts on the stage and screen, but doing research for this I came upon Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" music video. Please give me a moment that stands out working with Robin Williams in that.
BI: Robin's mind is so fevered and fertile. We were doing this music video with a budget of like $200 total and he's like, "It would be great if there was a really beautiful woman, a babe, and she gets into the limo but she locks me out." And the producers were like, "How about Bill just locks the car?" And Robin's face just sunk. So he and I worked out a bit.
ESQ: Him giving you money to try to get into the limo.
BI: That's right.
ESQ: What I want to know is where he got all of those outfits. Every other shot of him, he's in something new.
BI: [Laughs] He showed up with a rolling rack. A lot of that was his own personal stuff. We was like, "Just a minute! I was thinking this." And he'd come out. He was just an energy field unlike anyone I've ever been around. I'm still trying to catch up that he's not on the face of the earth anymore.
