Star Wars Actor Brian Blessed Improvised Boss Nass' Famous Face Wobble
Brian Blessed is only 87 years old, but he has lived enough adventures for 10 lifetimes. He has been acting professionally since 1957, and has since racked up hundreds of credits on stage, screen, and in video games. His enormous frame (and beard) cut a striking figure, and his big booming voice could likely be heard from the moon. He's played Shakespeare, Dumas, Doyle, Asterix, "Doctor Who," "Flash Gordon," and "Peppa Pig."
In 1963, Blessed helped deliver a baby in public. He bit through the umbilical cord to complete his task, and licked the infant's face to comfort it. He had attempted to scale Mount Everest on three occasions, each time with assisted oxygen. He has also summited Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua. He survived a plane crash in the jungles the Venezuela. He once hiked to the North Pole on foot and claims to have punched a polar bear in the nose. As of this writing, he has completed 800 hours of space training in Russia. He also has a black belt in judo and once engaged in randori with Vladimir Putin. Blessed has provided vocals for the metal band Pythia, authored seven books, and works with multiple animal charities.
He also has the dubious honor of playing Boss Nass, the amphibious alien in charge of the Gungan undersea kingdom in George Lucas' 1999 flick "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace." Boss Nass was loud, robust, and known for his usual speech pattern. Occasionally, he would shake his jowly face and let fly with flecks of frog spittle.
In a new interview with Empire Magazine, Blessed talked about his experience working on "The Phantom Menace," and how he — needing to jazz up a scene — first improvised his jowly affectation.
You're no Bibbles
Blessed recalls that he was initially cast in "The Phantom Menace" as a different character. "They were keen for me to be in it. They wanted me to be a Jedi called Bibbles," he said. He likely meant Sio Bibble, a human-looking politician ultimately played by Oliver Ford Davies. Lucas recognized that Blessed, being an outsize actor, needed to play an outsize character, and gave him the role of Boss Nass instead. Boss Nass hated the humans that lived on the other side of the planet and had to be convinced by Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon (Ewan McGregor and Liam Neeson) to aid their quest.
The Gungans spoke in an unusual patois, which Lucas transcribed directly into the script. "I thought they were Jamaicans," Blessed said. "Gradually, you could see it had a language all of its own — an ancient language." When it came to one of Boss Nass' featured scenes, Lucas found the scene to be a bit dry, so he requested Blessed to do something to make it more interesting. Making scenes more interesting is, of course, Blessed's stock in trade. He said:
"George said, 'Can you do something for me, Brian? Can you do something totally original? A special effect of some kind?' 'Yeah, George!' I remember going 'MEEEEESAH LIKA DISS!' And I did this huge, wonderful wobble with my face. George said, 'You mad bastard, Brian! That's exactly what I want!"
Neeson and McGregor cracked up.
Blessed knew a lot about animals and did "a tremendous amount of work on various crocodiles. And so therefore, I studied certain reactions." Blessed also studies what kind of noises a dinosaur might make. "You can't just turn up there and just do a voice," he said "That's bollocks!"
Never live small
As one might guess from his performances and from his robust life of extreme adventure, Blessed lives by a philosophy of largesse. He is full of boundless enthusiasm about everything, including Boss Nass. He recalls meeting many fans who adored his performance, even meeting an energized crowd who chanted "Boss Nass" at him. He said he loved playing the part. "Every day, I raced to the studio to be there. I have never known such ecstasy, artistically." Boss Nass certainly seems like a fun role.
Blessed was certainly not about to give a restrained, understated performance. That's not why one hired Brian Blessed. You hire him because you need a larger-than-life character, something Blessed is more than happy to provide, especially playing non-human characters in sci-fi movies. He said:
"The energy that I use as Vultan in Flash Gordon, I bring very much to The Phantom Menace. Not sitting there on your arse and just being meditative and quiet and still. NO! I bring great energy to the whole f***ing thing. I love it. I just love science-fiction."
Blessed's most recent role was playing Boss Nass again for the 2022 video game "LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga." He also played a voice role in the animated series "Close Enough," and is currently in pre-production on a film called "Banking on Mr. Toad." May any of us live a 100th of the life that Blessed has lived. Blessed will likely pass away at the age of 125 when he will be eaten by a tiger he somehow encounters on the moon.