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" Katharine Hepburn once noted that Hollywood&amp;#039;s greatest star power resides in its smallest men. (Was it Hepburn?) Anyway, nowhere is that more true than in the diminutive star of the last two Star Wars movies. Though most people know Yoda from his collaboration with George Lucas, he&amp;#039;s actually been a Hollywood fixture for generations. He may be tiny, but his perspective on this town is that of someone much bigger. We recently caught up with him and his new wife, Kirsten, at the Embassy Courtyard Suites Hotel, their home of several months, to talk about his life in show business and his thoughts on being replaced in the new Star Wars picture, Episode I: The Phantom Menace.  ESQUIRE:  How are you? YODA:  I&amp;#039;m here, ain&amp;#039;t I? ESQ:  I thought we&amp;#039;d talk about Star Wars a little bit. YODA:  I thought we agreed that was off-limits. ESQ:  Well, I don&amp;#039;t remember saying that . . . because that&amp;#039;s sort of the purpose. YODA:  Oh, and I&amp;#039;m not good enough without being your little Star Wars monkey? ESQ:  No, not at all. YODA:  Let me tell you a little story. In the early seventies, when Evan [sic] McGregor was still in underpants, my agent sends me a script. It&amp;#039;s a long time ago, it&amp;#039;s got some evil guy and a good guy, and there&amp;#039;s planes and spaceships and explosions. Sounds crazy, right? But I wasn&amp;#039;t doing much, so I said, Ah, what the hell, and I do it. Do you know what movie that turned out to be? ESQ:  Star Wars? YODA:  Star Wars. I swear to God. ESQ:  Wow.  YODA:  Is that a story or what? ESQ:  That is a great story. YODA:  And that&amp;#039;s Hollywood. And you can write that in your tablet there. ESQ: Weren&amp;#039;t you actually in the second Star Wars movie, though? YODA: Ah, who cares. ESQ:  So how do you feel about the new one? YODA:  Hey, I&amp;#039;m a professional. I&amp;#039;m not gonna get into a whole controversial &amp;quot;he said, she said&amp;quot; just so you can sell papers. ESQ:  Have you seen it? YODA:  Listen, I know you want me to criticize the picture so you can go, &amp;quot;Oh, Yoda hates George&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Isn&amp;#039;t Yoda an asshole.&amp;quot; Well, Yoda&amp;#039;s not playin&amp;#039;. That movie&amp;#039;s got enough problems. ESQ:  Like, what sort of problems? YODA:  Nice try, Woodward. Or should I call you Bernstein? Maybe you&amp;#039;re more like Bernstein. ESQ:  You mean Jewish? YODA:  Oh, now you&amp;#039;re going to trot out the anti-Semitic thing. You want to rehash the thirties, is that what you want to do? I&amp;#039;ve acknowledged my mistakes. I&amp;#039;ve publicly said I&amp;#039;m glad the United States won. I thought we were here to talk about Star Wars. ESQ:  Okay, did you read for the new one? YODA:  We talked about it. We talked about the character, and I thought I had the part. Then George calls and says that this picture is back in time, so the part goes to a younger guy. ESQ:  You think it&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;re too old? YODA:  You got another reason? ESQ:  No. YODA:  I&amp;#039;m good enough to play 900 years old, but I can&amp;#039;t play 850? C&amp;#039;mon! You know what that is? I&amp;#039;m asking--do you know what that is? ESQ:  What? YODA:  Horseshit. ESQ:  Okay. YODA:  And I don&amp;#039;t care if Lucas knows it, either. You can quote me on that, and I&amp;#039;ll send him a copy myself. What paper are you from? ESQ:  Esquire. YODA:  Whatever. ESQ:  Is this the first time this sort of thing has happened to you? YODA:  It happens all the time. They&amp;#039;ll hardly let you read for a part in this fucking town if you&amp;#039;re over 600. And the only parts I do get are shriveled old creatures who live in some fucking swamp. ESQ:  Did you used to get better roles? YODA:  Hell, I was 875 when I did The Godfather. ESQ:  You were in The Godfather? YODA:  I played Fredo. ESQ:  You played Fredo in The Godfather? YODA:  Didn&amp;#039;t I just say that? ESQ:  I&amp;#039;m sorry, I guess I didn&amp;#039;t recognize you in that role. YODA:  It&amp;#039;s called acting. What do you think they pay us for? [To Kirsten.] Hey, check out Mr. English Major here. Doesn&amp;#039;t know what acting is. ESQ:  Have you talked with Lucas about future roles? YODA:  You know, it&amp;#039;s not just the age thing. I think the guy has it in for me. ESQ:  What makes you think that? YODA:  Just don&amp;#039;t talk about his beard--that&amp;#039;s all I have to say. ESQ:  What about his beard? YODA:  He talks to it. When he&amp;#039;s grooming it, he talks to it like it&amp;#039;s his fucking baby or something. &amp;quot;Yes, you&amp;#039;re a good beard, aren&amp;#039;t you. Look at you, you&amp;#039;re a big, hairy beard.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s pretty goddamn creepy, so I make a joke about it one day, and everybody&amp;#039;s all like, &amp;quot;Oooh, Yoda mentioned the beard thing.&amp;quot; And now every time I see him, I can tell he&amp;#039;s still pissed I mentioned his precious beard. ESQ:  Has getting married helped you deal with Hollywood? YODA:  It&amp;#039;s helped me in one department. ESQ:  I was talking about acting. YODA:  The sex department. [Yoda and Kirsten laugh.] ESQ:  Now, this isn&amp;#039;t your first marriage, correct? YODA:  It&amp;#039;s my ninety-fourth, actually. But I&amp;#039;ll tell you something: Don&amp;#039;t get married young. I didn&amp;#039;t know what I was doing. ESQ:  But ninety-three times? YODA:  But now I&amp;#039;ve got this one. [Yoda puts his hand, claw thing, whatever, on Kirsten&amp;#039;s arm.] YODA:  Baby, stand up and show this guy your ass. KIRSTEN: [Giggles.] Yoda! Stop it. YODA:  C&amp;#039;mon, just stand up and show us your ass! [Yoda looks at the interviewer.] YODA:  You gotta see this--it&amp;#039;s incredible. C&amp;#039;mon, baby, stand up. Let&amp;#039;s see some ass. [Kirsten stands up and twirls around.] YODA:  Was I right or was I right? And these [he points]--they&amp;#039;re real. Try finding those in this town. And they aren&amp;#039;t special effects from Industrial Light and . . . and . . . ESQ:  Magic. YODA:  Horseshit. Industrial Light and Horseshit, that&amp;#039;s what they should call it. ESQ:  Speaking of George Lucas-- YODA:  &amp;#039;Cause it&amp;#039;s horseshit. Industrial Light and Horseshit! [Yoda laughs. He looks at Kirsten. They both laugh.] ESQ:  George Lucas-- YODA:  Industrial Light and Horseshit! [Yoda and Kirsten laugh some more.] ESQ:  Why don&amp;#039;t we talk a bit about The Empire Strikes Back? YODA:  Let &amp;#039;er rip, chief. ESQ:  What was it like working with Harrison Ford? YODA:  Drinker. Big drinker. ESQ:  I didn&amp;#039;t know that. How about Alec Guinness? YODA:  Fruit. ESQ:  Excuse me? YODA:  You know--fruity. Gay. Likes men. ESQ:  Okay, I think I&amp;#039;ve got it. What about some of the nonhumans in the series? How did you get along with Chewbacca? YODA:  Chewie. Also gay. ESQ:  Really? I didn&amp;#039;t know Wookiees-- YODA:  It ain&amp;#039;t pretty, believe me. But Chewie was very professional. A real pro. Came prepared every day. The sort of actor who made everybody around him better. ESQ:  So Chewbacca was acting? It seemed like he was sort of playing himself. YODA:  That&amp;#039;s the hardest thing for an actor to do. I remember one day, Chewie had this scene where Han is being frozen in carbon. And, you know, Harrison is his buddy, so Chewie&amp;#039;s supposed to be all broken up. Came time to do the scene, and I could tell Chewie was nervous. Well, we&amp;#039;re rolling, and Harrison goes down in the carbon, and Chewie lets loose this huge roar. I mean, he just went to some special place and let us go with him. You could really feel it in the room. After the scene, everybody was real quiet, like we had just witnessed something rare. ESQ:  Did you ever ask him about it? YODA:  After the movie, I did. Turns out George told him Harrison really was being frozen in carbon. ESQ:  So Chewbacca believed it was really going on? YODA:  Yeah, Chewie was a real dumbshit. ESQ:  What&amp;#039;s next for you? YODA:  I got a small part in the next Woody Allen picture. He&amp;#039;s somebody I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to work with. ESQ:  What role will you play? YODA:  I play a bowl of dried fruit. It&amp;#039;s a small part, but I think I can probably make something of it. [Kirsten smiles.] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a994/esq0699-jun-yoda/>