Aside from James Earl Jones, is there another Star Wars voice actor more recognizable than Matthew Wood?
For years, the esteemed sound editor has worked closely with Lucasfilm on everything from Revenge of the Sith to Star Wars: The Last Jedi – for the record, Wood also helped remaster much of the sound design for Lucasfilm’s Original Trilogy as it made the journey over to Blu-ray.
But it’s Matthew Wood’s role as General Grievous that really struck a chord with the Star Wars community. First introduced during Episode III more than a decade ago, Wood’s iconic, distorted voice has since featured in The Clone Wars, which is now poised for a comeback of its own.
And while he’s not ready to talk about potential plot details for the project just yet, Wood did open up to Red Carpet News TV (h/t ComicBook.com) about why he’s “really excited” for the show’s revival.
I love working on Star Wars, I’ve been doing it a long time now — this week it’ll be 28 years. Dave Filoni was one of the best things that ever happened to Lucasfilm, and I’m very happy that he’s able and has a lot of the original crew back to come and tell more Clone Wars stories. That for us is really exciting.
When The Clone Wars first flickered into life, George Lucas envisioned Lucasfilm’s animated gem as a six-part series – it was only when fans began to react to the Star Wars TV show that it ballooned in size, spanning over 100 episodes and countless small-screen adventures.
Wood continued:
When we worked on Clone Wars originally, George was like, ‘Let’s do six episodes and see where we’re at.’ And at that point, we just kept going. We did a hundred-plus episodes because everyone loved it so much. And having [supervising director] Dave Filoni spearhead this, along with the fans’ interest that’s been going for 10 years, it feels great.
I saw the reaction at San Diego Comic-Con last week, and it brought tears to my eyes just to see how excited people were for that. We were a little show on Cartoon Network when it came out, and I think the fact the show’s been streaming so much and people have seen it a lot, and people that saw that show are older now, everyone really just has a soft spot for it. So seeing it come back is really exciting.
Greatness from small beginnings, then; from Cartoon Network to Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming service, Star Wars: The Clone Wars has enjoyed quite the journey. And we’ll be there to witness the show’s second coming late next year.