I was sad to hear about the death of Malcolm Tierney. For those of you who don’t think you know the actor, you probably do! Especially one line:
“Where are you taking this… thing?”
Yeah, he played the guard in the detention block from Star Wars.
I got to meet him and his friend Vanessa Redgrave when they were visiting my family in NYC. I’ve always admired Vanessa’s work. But it was Malcom who had me star-struck.
We went out to a local Chinese restaurant for lunch. The tourists ogled Vanessa while I drilled Malcom about his SW experience. He was so gracious in the face of my geek-storm! He told me about his (“deformed”) action figure, his famous line of dialogue (dubbed) and how Star Wars would always be a part of his life — even with films like Braveheart, and TV like Doctor Who under his belt.
But nothing delighted me more than when I grabbed my jacket from the hook before saying goodbye.
“Where are you taking that… thing?” he asked.
Thanks for the fun lunch and that one moment of exquisite performance, Malcom!