Peter Mayhew

"This [Star Wars] has been the best thing that ever happened to me. In the last 25 years, I've been able to travel all over the world, get paid for it. I never have to pay for a thing. I can go out in public without being recognized. If I want to be recognized in public, it will happen. Star Wars was great to me. I'm set for life."

- Peter Mayhew

Peter Mayhew (born May 19, 1944 in Barnes, London, England) is best known for his portrayal of Chewbacca in the Star Wars films.



Having worked on |a previous movie, film industry employees, impressed with his portrayal of the Minotaur, offered Mayhew a chance to do more movies; he accepted. When Star Wars A New Hope was in production, his name was put forward (by those same employees) to director George Lucas, who was searching for tall actors to play as Darth Vader or Chewbacca. Six months later, Twentieth Century Fox, the distributors of Star Wars, gave Mayhew a phonecall, asking him to audition for one of the characters. Walking into the office, Mayhew sat on one of the chairs, before spotting a painting of Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, C3PO, R2D2 and Chewbacca on a wall. He noticed a signing that said "Eight foot plus, blue eyes" underneath the Chewbacca drawing; Mayhew himself has blue eyes, and he mentally picked Chewbacca as the character to audition for. As the door to the office opened, George Lucas and Gary Kurtz walked into the room. Mayhew stood up on instinct, as a show of politeness. After visually observing Mayhew's tall frame, Lucas shook Mayhew's hands, turned to Kurtz and said, "I think we found him".

Lucas originally had the idea of casting David Prowse, a six footer brought in by Lucas, as Chewbacca, but in a show of irony, Prowse chose to be Vader, because he "didn't want to be a masked character". Consequently, the role of Chewbacca was given to Mayhew. In addition to his work as Chewbacca in the films, he has appeared in-character in various commercials and for hospital appearances for sick children.

Mayhew now lives in Granbury, Texas, and is the owner of his own business. He took the oath to become an American naturalized citizen of the United States on October 17, 2005 at a ceremony in Arlington, Texas. In an interview with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, he jokingly noted that he didn't get a medal at this ceremony either; a reference to the Star Wars scene in which Luke and Han get medals but the Wookiee gets none.

He was kind enough to make a cameo as himself in the Paducah Imperials FanForce feature length fan film Star Wars Fanboy, scaring off stormtroopers with Wookiee noises, some of which he made himself on set.