Having spent many years intimately working with the Star Wars franchise, I am privileged enough to be invited to various fandom conventions, signings, screenings, and events around the world. I also do a lot of speaking engagements.  It’s really quite a blessing.

But as you can guess, I get asked the same questions over and over again.  It is inevitable.

Someone said to me recently, “Wow, I bet that gets annoying.” My response surprised them when I replied, “No, I would be upset if it didn’t happen.”

Like many of my fellow performers and artists, I know that I am going to get asked the same questions wherever I go.  It may be the same questions, but it’s a different audience each time, a different interviewer, a different venue, a different context.  I may have heard and answered those questions a countless number of times, but this is their first time meeting me and their first opportunity to pose a question in person. How could I be annoyed by that?

Whenever I lecture or teach on how to break into the entertainment industry I encourage people to go to events where they can meet the professionals whose footsteps they wish to follow in and to ask them questions. It’s one of the best ways to prepare yourself for the career you envision. “But I don’t want to ask the same question that everybody else asks them,” people will say, to which I inform them, “Then that means everybody else got an answer and you didn’t.”

When individuals who possess a certain amount of celebrity come to an event and meet with the public, they know darned well they will be asked the same questions again and again. If they are not willing to answer those questions then they have no business putting themselves in that position. Not only am I willing to answer the same questions about myself and my career over and over – each time answering as if it was the first time I had ever been asked – I would feel horrible if anyone felt that they could not ask me those questions for fear that I was tired of hearing them.

Yes, I am asked the same old questions time and time again.  No, it never gets annoying.  Keep asking.  That’s why I do what I do.  It’s all part of the job of being a performer & artist, a job I am very thankful for.

And in case you’re wondering…yes, it’s hot inside the Vader costume.