General Veers Actor Julian Glover Got His Star Wars Part Through Luck
You might remember English actor Julian Glover for his role as Walter Donovan, the villain of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." A Nazi collaborator who wants the Holy Grail to achieve immortality, he meets a grisly end when he chooses ... poorly.
In his native England, Glover was a renowned member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In Hollywood, though? He's a 6'2 British man, so, of course, he plays the heels, even in his later roles like Pycelle on "Game of Thrones." (Who knows if he'll show up in "3 Body Problem" with his former co-stars.)
"Last Crusade" was not Glover's first rodeo with Lucasfilm; he had a much smaller role in "The Empire Strikes Back" as Imperial General Veers. The general only shows up in the film's first act, but he leads the AT-AT assault on the Hoth Rebel base (with some insert shots of him riding in the cockpit). What's most memorable about Veers is how he's one of the lucky Imperial commanders whom Darth Vader doesn't strangle in "The Empire Strikes Back" (RIP Captain Needa, played by the late Michael Culver) — though he does deliver the bad news that makes Vader kill the "clumsy and stupid" Admiral Ozzel (Michael Sheard, who cameoed as Hitler in "The Last Crusade").
In 2019, Glover sat down for an interview with "Star Wars Insider" magazine (issue #190) and revealed how he got his small part in "The Empire Strikes Back" through neighborly connections.
Neighborly connections to Star Wars and Indiana Jones
Most of the original "Star Wars" was shot in England at Elstree Studios (the shoot in Tunisia for the Tatooine scenes was quite stressful for George Lucas). The Lucasfilm crew returned for "The Empire Strikes Back," though they again braved the elements, this time the cold, to shoot the Hoth scenes in Norway.
Since "Star Wars" was shooting in England, the films' creatives recruited local talent for the incidental characters. The Imperial officers don't have the accents just to make them sound aristocratic, but because their actors were largely British.
This is how "Empire Strikes Back" producer Robert Watts found Glover; the two were neighbors at the time. He obviously knew Glover could handle an undemanding part like Veers and asked if he wanted to be in the movie. Glover, of course, said yes. Watts again recruited Glover to appear in "The Last Crusade" — he was initially suggested for Nazi Colonel Ernst Vogel but when that part was filled (by Michael Byrne), they offered him Donovan instead. Glover was frank about how luck helps in the movie business:
"I hope I would have got the roles anyway, being respected as an actor, but this business is all about contacts: who you know and where you are at a particular time. You could be in a restaurant and the producer might spot you and say, 'That's the guy we want.' That happens all the time. Or they say: 'I might want Julian Glover for that,' and then they see me in a restaurant and think, 'Oh no, I don't want him!'"
General Veers was just as lucky he wasn't around in any scene when Darth Vader needed someone to choke.