Ian Mcdiarmid made his first appearance at a Star Wars convention today at Celebration VI, which was no doubt one of the main highlights of the whole convention, where he went on to discuss many things about Emperor Palpatine, including his thoughts on the possibility of playing Palpatine again! Here are some the highlights from the panel:

[blockquote cite=]On Palpatine’s origins mentioned in the opera scene in Revenge of the Sith, he says, “It would be nice if one day they would be followed up… who knows?”

He also brought up the much delayed live action T.V. show on his own, and hopes that one day all the issues causing the delays can be worked out.

When asked if he would return as Palpatine in the live-action series, he replied with a big grin, “Well… what do you think?” “If he happened to pop up in the script I would hate if it was to go live and someone else were to be in it.” He then says “Who knows if Palpatine would be in it? It could be like A New Hope. There could be a terrific representative — and by god, Peter Cushing was a terrific actor — doing the emperor’s bidding.”

On which actor he enjoyed working with the most, he mentioned Hayden Christensen saying, “His performance is greatly underrated. I really liked him.”

On which version of Palpatine stuck out the most to him, McDiarmid responded, “I felt most evil when I was playing the Senator, because he was so recognizable as a contemporary politician.”

McDiarmid told stories about coming up with the Emperor’s distinctive voice in Return of the Jedi, after deciding the character looked like “a black, slimy toad.”

He remembered showing up to record ADR for Return of the Jedi, where he was still not sure if Lucas was happy with the voice he used on set and would want it changed. But when Steven Spielberg saw McDiarmid and exclaimed, “Oh my god, you’re so evil!”, he decided the voice had worked and he was okay.

On Christopher Lee, McDiarmid mentioned how he was jokingly upset about he would no longer be the only character who could use Force Lightining anymore.
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It sounded like this was an awesome discussion to be a part of! It’s also really cool to hear that he would be open to playing Palpatine again! And how awesome would that be to have Ian Mcdiarmid return as Palpatine in the live-action series!? One can only hope.