Mission Destination:

James Earl Jones provides the distinctive voice for one of the most iconic sci-fi villains of all time: Darth Vader.

From Force Material:

“On the set of Star Wars, David Prowse (pictured along side Jones above) worried that his lines were being muffled by Darth Vader’s helmet. Not to worry, he was told – the lines would be re-recorded. But what nobody told Prowse, according to the actor, was that he wouldn’t be the one doing the re-recording.

Instead, Lucas went through tapes of some of the finest voices in Hollywood, including Orson Welles, [finally settling on] James Earl Jones’ distinctive baritone…

Lucas was initially worried about the implications of casting the film’s only black man as the villain, but eventually decided that Jones was too perfect for the part to worry about racial politics.

Jones was paid $7,500 for his contributions to the film, which were recorded in just two and a half hours on March 1, 1977. Jones chose to go uncredited for his performance, and he insists that his contributions were “just special effects”. Prowse, Jones once told Star Wars Insider, “is Vader”. “