In "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope" Garrick Hagon is Biggs Darklighter, Luke Skywalker's old friend and, as Red Three, one of the best X-Wing pilots of the Rebel Alliance. Garrick's first film role was as Eros in Charlton Heston's "Antony and Cleopatra". He went on to star in Marvin Lichtner's "Some Kind of Hero" a feature film about a deserter from the Vietnam war. Other films have included: "Cry Freedom", "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Message", in which he starred with Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas, working for over a year in the deserts of North Africa. One of his favorite film experiences was the night he filmed the first scene of Tim Burton's "BATMAN" on the huge Pinewood set playing the Father along with his wife, actress Liza Ross, as the Mother, lost with their son in Gotham City. On television, Garrick's first major role was in New York in a United States Steel Hour production, "Little Lost Sheep" starring Jane Wyatt and Hans Conreid. Since then he has played in hundreds of television dramas around the world. In the series, "The Adventurer", shot at Elstree Studios in England, Garrick starred alongside Gene Barry. In the series, "Oppenheimer", about the making of the first atomic bomb, which starred Sam Waterston, Garrick played Frank Oppenheimer and in the BBC's "Lady of the Camellias", he played Dumas Fils, with Kate Nelligan in the title role. Garrick acted with Angela Lansbury and Sir Laurence Olivier in the BBC TV drama, "A Talent for Murder" and in the HBO mini-series "Fatherland", he played opposite opposite Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson. In Turner TV's "The Nightmare Years", directed by Anthony Page, he played the famous broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. Garrick's love of science fantasy started in his first British TV role as Ky in the "Dr. Who" series "The Mutants". He went on to do a science fiction series for the BBC called "Moonbase". From there it was a giant step to "Star Wars". The BBC has also given Garrick the chance to pursue his love of classical theatre. In their Shakespeare series he played Mountjoy in "Henry V" and Octavius in "Julius Caesar". In repertory theatre in England he has played Hamlet and at the Stratford Festival of Canada, where he won the Tyrone Guthrie Award, he played Don John in "Much Ado About Nothing". On CBC-TV in Canada Garrick had a long career as a presenter of a weekly magazine program and starred in over 20 TV dramas, winning a Best Supporting Actor Award in 1985. On stage, Garrick starred with Colin Blakely and Rosemary Harris in a West End production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" directed by Michael Blakemore and at the Royal National Theatre he was in another production, highly approved by Miller himself, of "After the Fall". He has acted in the theatre in England, Canada and Europe in roles as diverse as Capt.Stanhope in "Journey's End" and Teach in David Mamet's "American Buffalo". A busy radio actor, Garrick has read over fifty stories on BBC Radio and played in many of radio dramas in England and Canada, as well as having recorded over 80 books on audio cassette, the most recent title being "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. On the popular BBC Radio soap opera, "The Archers", he plays Simon Gerrard. Garrick writes and directs for his own audio cassette company, The Story Circle, which has just finished multi-voice productions of Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass" and "The Subtle Knife" for Random House as well as a series of Goosebumps stories by R.L.Stine. Any spare time he tries to spend in Spain renovating an old farmhouse with his family and riding in the Alpujarras. Garrick recently appeared alongside Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith in the 2012 episode of Doctor Who 'A Town Called Mercy.'
- from garrickhagon.com
Garrick Hagon on his return visit to the place where his Anchorhead scenes were filmed:
"Tunisia, April 16, 2002 They say "Don't look back", but when the chance came to re-visit the Star Wars Tunisian shooting sites with Gary Kurtz, the co-producer of Episode IV, I couldn't refuse. Gary is directing a documentary on the making of the film, produced by Jason Joiner, and it promises a lot of exciting material, interviews with many of those who helped create the film and a panorama of the old shooting sites.
When we landed the sun was setting in a fiery ball over Djerba airport. A flurry of fine sand swept over the tarmac. Djerba, the island to the east of Tunisia, where the film unit was based back in April 1975 looks much the same, a huge complex of tourist hotels spread along the Mediterranean coast, sand and scrub, horses, goats and camels wandering untethered in fields, half-built houses and crumbling shanties mix with luxurious villas along the roads.
Next morning we drove to the Anchorhead location at Ajim, where the original Toshi Station scene was shot, the famous "Lost Scene", which begins with a scene inside the station with Deak, Fixer, Camie and Windy and Biggs and ends with Biggs saying 'so long' to Luke.
It was now 26 years later and the dawn felt the same, the road as bumpy, our car kicking up the same dust, the sun as hot on the side of the car as we headed along the coast road. But somehow the journey seemed less long. Maybe because I had no tension in the pit of the stomach, it was not the first day on a major film, there was no huge film crew to meet, no pages of dialogue to get through, no new director to discover.
Then, there it was, at the bottom of a dirt track, the old white mosque perched on the coast outlined against the blue sky, a fisherman on the coast below preparing his nets, a local Tunisian in his dark robes parking his old bike and resting for a moment on the promontory staring across the water. It was silent, just the sound of a cool breeze over the lapping sea, and somewhere in our minds a distant echo of old memories of a bustling film crew preparing to shoot another scene in the saga.
Gary and I did our documentary interview on the ledge outside the mosque where I had walked with Luke trying to persuade him to leave Uncle Owen's farm and join the Rebel Alliance. Some of the old dialogue of that scene was stilled wedged in my mind, and Mark Hamill's comments as we filmed through the morning and afternoon, his terrific energy and support, and at one point his whispering "I don't think we've ever shot so many takes." The endless refills of the 'malt' drink we were sipping as we left the station. My black berber cape (the inspiration of the costume department) blowing in the wind and knocking the microphone fixed somewhere under my blue shirt.
Apart from the graffiti on the mosque walls and the difference in the size of the film crew shooting from the beach the feeling was the same. This time round we had only a cameraman, Dylan, and a soundman, Johnny. When we finished the documentary interview, I had a feeling of expiation. Gary even explained, with structural analysis, why the Anchorhead scene had been cut. (Performances were not in question!) Only time will tell whether the scene will be resurrected in some future edition. As it was, there, on the headland at Ajim, almost 26 years to the day after the 'missing scene' was filmed, its ghost had been laid.
The rest of the trip was new territory for me: first to one of the Uncle Owen homestead sites, then by ferry to the mainland and a long dusty exhilarating ride south across the salt flats to Touzeur where we took expeditions out to the stunning canyon at Sidi Bouhlel then by camel to the dunes further south and finally we filmed a glorious sunset over the endless flat horizon by the site of the set for Uncle Owen's house, re-constructed for Episode 2 . It was magic.
While we were there a Land Cruiser full of fans, or maybe just tourists, arrived to take pictures of the site. Pilgrims all, travelling a well-worn path.
- from garrickhogan.com
At conventions and in letters I'm often asked, 'How did you get on the film?'
Well, the road to Star Wars must have begun when my parents sent me to acting class when I was six, then came radio acting on a Saturday show out of CBC, Toronto, then my own disc jockey show for kids on Saturdays which I inherited from Peter Jennings, as good as a kid presenter as he later was as ABC news anchorman. I acted as a kid at the Stratford Festival of Canada, playing the Prince of Wales opposite Alec Guinness as Richard III.
And the acting bug stuck through high school and into university at UofT where I spent 4 years getting my Honours BA. After that, I came to England on a scholarship to study, did my acting apprenticeship in theatres all round the UK and finally got my first big film with Charlton Heston, "Antony and Cleopatra", playing Eros, Antony's faithful servant who kills himself rather than see his master suffer. My first starring role, in a film called "Some Kind of Hero" playing a Vietnam draft dodger, bombed, but I stayed in London, was known by Irene Lamb, the Star Wars casting director, and was called in to audition for one of the guys in "A New Hope". Irene Lamb told all of us before we went in to meet George that he might be shy and not talk too much. But somehow George and I started talking about Morocco , shooting in the desert (where I had just done "The Message" with Anthony Quinn) and Moroccan cloaks. Somebody later told me that George had a marking system for auditions. I must have been lucky and scored high. I was offered Biggs, one of the best roles that were cast out of London.
So what happened to Biggs and how did I feel when he wasn't around as much in the final cut as he was in the script?
Sure, I felt bad. Who wouldn't? But George and the editors had hard decisions to make to get the film in under 2 hours and the scene lasts about 5 minutes. Later, at a convention in Holland, Gary Kurtz told me the editorial reasons for cutting the Anchorhead scenes and I think they make sense. To include the group of Luke's friends at the station took the film in a different direction as well as slowing down the impetus into the main action of the film led by the two robots. Still, now that we don't care so much about a film's length and kids can sit for hours at Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, I'd like to see more of Luke's old friend Biggs and the gang around him. It would make more of Luke's reaction to Biggs' death in the dogfight. Anyway, it was a great kick finally seeing the Anchorhead scene on the CD-Rom "Behind the Magic". And who knows? We may see it again on the DVD of Episode IV.
What's happened since on the Star Wars scene?
Nothing but good-lots of travelling round the world on various conventions, meeting hundreds of fans, good laughs and a great time with the Star Wars Alumni. Roll on Celebration 2!
- Garrick Hagon interviewed for biggsdarklighter.com
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