You may remember him from the initial blitz of promo for Star Wars: The Force Awakens: a soccer ball atop another soccer ball, beeping and booping with more life than all of the Star Wars prequels combined. His name was BB-8, and he was destined for great things.
But there’s more to this story than just balls and bloops. Turns out, SNL alum Bill Hader and Parks and Recreation funny man Ben Schwartz collectively played the voice of the Little Robot That Could (And Will). Technically, they are billed as BB-8 “voice consultants,” probably because what is heard of their voice is so far away from what their actual voices are.
Hader described the process to HitFix:
“JJ fucking around with this sound effects app on his iPad that was attached to a talk box operated by me. It looked ridiculous but it made BB-8’s voice. At first I tried doing a voice, but we all agreed it sounded too human.”
So, all-in-all, it’s been a pretty big year for Hader, what with his show Documentary Now! on IFC and his co-starring turn in Amy Schumer’s blockbuster comedy Trainwreck. And yet, even though those two shows featured Hader’s bodily form, they still seem like much lesser accomplishments than this, consulting on the electric voice for a robot in a science fiction film.