Actor Sam Witwer is a fan favorite among Star Wars fans. Not only is he the voice of the popular Sith villain Darth Maul in both the Clone Wars and Rebels television series, but also the voice and likeness of the Sith assassin Starkiller aka Galen Marek from the Force Unleashed video game series.

Not that long ago Witwer did an interview with starters.com talking about the game being re-released on Nintendo Switch as well as looking back on his experience working on that game.

When asked about being cast in the role of Starkiller and beginning development back in 2007 he said:

“Well, it’s hard to say. Just a few days back was the 11^th anniversary of Dave Filoni calling me to tell me to play Maul, right? So, I’m like, ‘Wow, that was 11 years ago that we decided to do that.’ Force Unleashed was 15. I guess the passage of time is a tricky thing to track these days, because I don’t know that I feel that different than I did back then. And then when I review certain things about my life, maybe I am different. But one thing that hasn’t changed about me is my undying enthusiasm and excitement over the Star Wars stories.“

Then they asked how he thinks the game holds up after all these years and seeing how technology has advanced since then he responded with:

“Well, when I play it, I’m biased, because a giant flood of memories comes back and I remember how excited I was to go to San Francisco and go to the studio and be at Industrial Light & Magic, LucasArts, Skywalker Ranch, all these places that I had dreamed of seeing. But having said that, I still love the way the Force is used in that the game. It really encourages you to get creative with the Force and to try things. And that’s really the way it was designed to be played.“

In response to how he would describe his character, Starkiller, he stated:

“So Starkiller is the photo negative of Luke Skywalker. It’s like you’re sitting around the campfire and you’re telling the story of the Sith that turned good, you know, kind of a cautionary tale to Sith everywhere. ‘Be careful, you might turn good.’ It’s that type of thing. And it really is a tall tale. It’s this perspective on what was happening between the two trilogies and what was happening with Darth Vader and what his ambitions were, as played out through this young innocent kid and how he has to learn to think for himself throughout the game. Because at first, all he’s doing is trying to please his master, Darth Vader.“



The interview ended with him thanking everyone on the team for starting his 15 year relationship with Lucasfilm by playing Starkiller and eventually playing Darth Maul.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed became a massive success upon its original release in 2008 selling nearly 2 million units with Starkiller becoming a fan favorite anti-hero appearing in multiple projects, including being a playable guest character in Bandai Namco’s Soul Calibur IV for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 alongside Darth Vader and Yoda.



A second game released in 2010 but it unfortunately didn’t sell as well as the first game. A third game was in development but was sadly canceled.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed in now available on Nintendo Switch (grated it’s a port of the Wii version of the game).

Do you have any positive memories of the Force Unleashed games? Do you wish we could have gotten the canceled 3rd game that would have finished the story? Should there be a Force Unleashed movie?

Source: StarWars.com