Every Actor Who's Played Emperor Palpatine In Star Wars Movies & TV
In George Lucas' 1977 sci-fi flick "Star Wars," there is a scene wherein a cadre of Nazi-like bad guys, in the employ of the evil Empire, gather around a boardroom table and mention that the mysterious off-screen Emperor has dissolved the senate and taken absolute control. The military generals are outraged, wondering how the Empire might survive without a bureaucracy in place. In Irvin Kirshner's 1980 sequel "The Empire Strikes Back," it's established that Darth Vader (David Prowse), a mysterious masked warlock, was actually the Emperor's right-hand man, indicating that the Emperor retains control of the Empire through the sheer force of his villainy.
In "The Empire Strikes Back," the Emperor appeared in holographic form to have a powwow with Darth Vader and plan his next move. In the original cut of the movie, the Emperor was played on screen by actress Marjorie Eaton, outfitted with eerie, alien eyeballs. Eaton was a long-working character performer in Hollywood, and Kirshner merely needed someone willing to provide a threatening face. The Emperor was voiced by prolific New Zealand actor Clive Revill.
In Richard Marquand's 1983 follow-up "Return of the Jedi," the Emperor returned, but this time played (and voiced) by British actor Ian McDiarmid. McDiarmid would go on to play the Emperor — later named on screen as Palpatine — in five additional "Star Wars" movies, most recently in J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker."
In all the re-releases of "Empire" after 1997, new footage of McDiarmid would replace the Eaton/Revill scenes.
But these three actors are only a few of the many who have played Palpatine. Indeed, if one counts "Star Wars" TV shows and video games, Palpatine has been played by eight different actors.
Nick Jameson and Ian Abercrombie
From 1999 to 2005, George Lucas directed three effects-heavy prequels to "Star Wars," wherein McDiarmid played Palpatine as an ambitious young senator who was secretly trying to take over the Senate and install himself as Emperor. These prequels took place before and during the Clone Wars, a significant episode in the ongoing astral conflict of "Star Wars." In 2003, the Clone Wars were explored in Genndy Tartakovsky's animated series called (natch) "Star Wars: Clone Wars." Apart from Anthony Daniels, none of the film actors appeared in this series, leaving the role of Senator Palpatine in the hands of singer and voice actor Nick Jameson.
Jameson had been working in animated television since the early 1990s, having appeared in "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters," "Spider-Man" (he played Morbius), and "The Critic" (he played Vlada, the weird restaurateur). Jameson would return to "Star Wars" for the similarly titled (but assuredly different) 2008 "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." "The Clone Wars" (with the article intact) was a CGI-animated feature film that spun off into a long-running TV series. Jameson, however, wouldn't be playing Palpatine anymore.
Instead, at least for the film and for the show's first six seasons, Palpatine was voiced by British actor Ian Abercrombie. Abercrombie is perhaps best known for playing Mr. Pitt on "Seinfeld." He also played the wise old sage in Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness" and Batman's butler Alfred in the short-lived 2002 series "Birds of Prey." Although Abercrombie passed in 2012, his voice continued to be used on "The Clone Wars" through 2014.
Tim Curry, Sam Witwer
In the sixth season of "The Clone Wars," the task of playing Palpatine was offered to British actor Tim Curry, the star of the 2008 video game "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3."
Curry's career is actually lengthy and legendary and hardly needs reiteration here. For those who haven't seen "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Annie," "It," "Legend," "Clue," "The Hunt for Red October," "The Shadow," or "Muppet Treasure Island," it's time to get cracking. Curry suffered a stroke in 2012, leaving him less able to act. As such, for the seventh and final season of "The Clone Wars" (on Disney+), McDiarmid returned.
McDiarmid also came back to voice Palpatine for the TV series "Star Wars Rebels," which takes place in between "Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith" and the original "Star Wars." It, too, featured the evil Emperor beginning in its second season. "Rebels" began its life as a series of TV shorts before being picked up and running for four seasons. Throughout the second season, Palpatine was alternately played by McDiarmid and veteran voice actor Sam Witwer, who also played Darth Maul.
Sam Witwer has played many roles throughout "Star Wars," and was the go-to Palpatine performer for several "Star Wars" video games, notably in "Battlefront" and in "The Forced Unleashed," wherein he also voiced the lead character Starkiller. He even did his Palpatine and Maul voices for one of the "Lego Star Wars" games. Witwer has been loyal to the franchise, having also appeared in "The Book of Boba Fett," "Andor," "The Force Awakens," "The Last Jedi," "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (as the voice of Maul), and "The Rise of Skywalker," mostly providing background vocals.
Trevor Devall
The "LEGO Star Wars" universe exists in a little pocket unto itself, often playing as a simultaneous tribute and satire to the franchise; it's hard to take a story seriously when you transform all the characters into literal toys. Throughout the "LEGO Star Wars" universe, Palpatine has been pretty reliably voiced by Trevor Devall.
Devall is a hard-working and prolific voice actor who began his career in the early 2000s, playing voices in cartoons, providing English dubs for anime shows, and performing for video games. Apart from Witwer's above-mentioned performance in a "LEGO Star Wars" video game, the LEGO version of Palpatine has always been Devall. He appeared in animated miniseries and TV specials, including the recent "The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special," and its logical spinoffs "LEGO Star Wars: Tales of Terror" and "LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation."
He gets to be a little silly with it.
The future of "Star Wars" currently feels a little uncertain, but given the franchise's inability to move away from the Skywalker family, it's likely that Palpatine will indeed return. Somehow.