Bill Hader will not sign your Star Wars merchandise
Bill Hader is opening up about a frustrating experience that put him off signing BB-8 merchandise.
The Barry star was credited as a voice consultant for the adorable droid BB-8 alongside fellow comedian Ben Schwartz in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and his connection to the little guy means he still gets people asking him to sign their Star Wars gear.
"I do not sign them," Hader confirmed on a recent episode of Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast. "Autograph people don't like me. I won't sign things."
In fact, he can pinpoint the exact moment that he became disillusioned with the premise of signing goods that could potentially just end up on eBay.
"You know what it was? I used to sign stuff, and then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB-8 thing and it was three in the morning," Hader said. "I was leaving the Inside Out premiere and then we went to an after-party thing and it was super late and this guy kept his kid up all night. [He] was like, 'Go over there so he'll sign it so I can sell it online.'"
"I was like, 'That's f—ed up,'" he continued. "So now, I just kind of blanket, like, I'm not signing any of this s—."
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty; Lucasfilm Ltd Bill Hader; BB-8 in 'Star Wars: the Force Awakens'
In general, Hader noted that he doesn't entirely feel like he can take credit for BB-8's success as a character either.
"It's very sweet that J.J. Abrams put my name on it, but I came in and did voice stuff for it that didn't work," he explained. "Then, he brought me in later and said, 'Hey, do you want to do this.' It was like a … talk box thing and then I did that. And the reason he hasn't had me come back is because anybody can do that. It's like a machine that you can operate."
Hader added, "I did some voice stuff that just didn't work, so… I'm not really sure what Ben [Schwartz] did, but I just know that was my experience doing it."
Watch Hader discuss signing merchandise — and creating Barry — in the video above.
For interviews with the casts of Andor, Ahsoka, The Mandalorian, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, make sure to check out EW's new Star Wars podcast, Dagobah Dispatch.
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