My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 498.5 - SAM WITWER ON 'MAUL: SHADOW LORD'

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Robbie is joined by Sam Witwer to discuss #MaulShadowLord, as well as a whole lot more about Darth Maul and Sam's portrayal of him over the past fifteen years. They talk about Maul's mindset in this show, how it was crafted, who Maul's favorite Beatle woulda been, and more! #DarthMaul #StarWars #SamWitwer **************************************** My Mom's Basement is a weekly podcast hosted by Robbie Fox, started in March 2019, to discuss movies, music, comic books, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and more with his friends and idols alike! Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-moms-basement/id1457255205 Follow Robbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatrobbiefox Follow Robbie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners. You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. All right, welcome back to My Mom's Basement, ladies and gentlemen. It is Robbie Fox, and I am here with a man I've been a fan of for a very long time, going back to the Force Unleash Days, of course. It is Sam Whitworth. Thank you so much for the time.

I'm excited to talk Mall Shadow Lord with you today. It's a show that I've been loving, and I've been saying, as long as it sticks this landing, it's going to be my favorite Star Wars animated show of all time. Uh-oh. Well, that's, pressure is on, I suppose. I suppose, but you know what? I have the ultimate faith in the entire team behind Mall Shadowlord because honestly,

Star Wars animation never lets me down. Well, I hope that we can keep up that trend. I mean, we certainly, that that team is extraordinary. They're incredible. And I've known that for a long time. Yeah, I heard Dave Filoni talking about this show early on when it was first announced, and he said that in some respects, it's going to pay off. off some of the ideas that George had for the character and some of the things George was thinking

about. Does your knowledge of this stuff go all the way back to when George was developing it, some of the threads in this series? I know some stuff. I don't know what Dave knows, but I know some stuff, you know, things that he's told me are whispers here and there. But yeah, I was aware that George had an interest in the Darth Mall character. And I suppose I'm, I'm very happy about that. I was also aware that George, I guess, approved of what I did. He wrote me a nice letter once to that effect. And so I just hope that he continues to tell like what we're doing with his character, you know?

Of course. Yeah. When were you made aware of Mall Shadow Lord becoming a reality and getting to really dive into this stuff? A bit over two years ago. And I was surprised that it hadn't occurred to me that we would revisit the character in that way. And did you know back then when you first got told we're doing Mall Shadow Lord that it would have this very unique animation style that goes off in that really practical textured brushstroke style? They didn't make me wait. They showed me early tests right away.

And it was very obvious. It was a good idea. Because when you think about things like the Empire Strikes Back, all the beautiful film grain and the map paintings and everything being very tactile, the style of filmmaking back then and the equipment that it was available created a very tactile reality. I mean, even the map paintings felt like they were real. They were creating that world for you.

So it is interesting that with all of our digital technology, that the team has figured out how to make the show feel very solid. We do have real mat paintings and some practical photography and all kinds of tricks, you know, smoke machine photography and all kinds of crazy ideas that Joel Aaron would come up with and that Brad Rowe would encourage the team to invent, you know, because it is really a lineage of the Clone Wars Digital Animation 3D Animation style. But I think that we're using the tools. perhaps more inventively than we have in the past.

Simply because Dave told everyone that across the board he wanted to improve every aspect of what Star Wars animated show could be. And by every aspect, he means the lighting has to be better, the cinematography has to be better, the choreography has to be better, the acting has to be better, the writing has to be better, the direction has to be better.

The editorial has to be, you know, snappier and more interesting. And, you know, I thought they were doing great before. So when I heard that, I was like, oh, boy, okay. How do you do that? Yeah, I mean, we sound like a broken record every week on our show when we're recapping the episodes because we just can't stop talking about how visually stunning it is. When it's something as simple as two guys jumping through a waterfall with lightsabers in their hands and you see the smoke coming off of the lightsabers, something like that,

even flashlights, you know, when Lawson and crew are looking for mall, the way the lighting looks, it really is my favorite, I would say, Star Wars animation style I've ever seen. I'm like praying that this kind of becomes the umbrella, everything goes under this more tactile brand of animation because I love it so much. When you say there's also practical photography, can you dive into that at all, what that means? Well, for example, sometimes there are elements that Joel, Aaron, and Brad and all these folks who have been around Lucas from forever, they're trained in the George Lucas way of thinking,

which is the best solution isn't always the most expensive. If there's a pyrotechnic effect or something, which they do very well digitally, but there are times where they say, well, why don't we have an element of a practical fire in there or something like that? What's stopping us? We're trying to get a good result. We should use every tool at our disposal.

And, and, you know, for example, in one case, we were short a spaceship. So Joel was just like, don't worry, I'll build one. I worked at ILM. I'll build a spaceship. We'll shoot it. We'll paint over it. And you're like, and it looks terrific. It looks great.

So it's a reminder that George Lucas and all of the folks at ILM over the years that their goal was to create a film. That was the goal. so there should be no one should turn their nose up at a simple solution if it provides more bang for your buck you know that's awesome yeah i mean i loved the i'm sure everyone did the light and magic documentary about i'llm i would love a similar behind the scenes look at the clone wars animation team and the rebels animation team and the mall shadow lord animation team because i think fans would enjoy that just as much it's fascinating i would i would very much enjoy that because i'm i'm i'm first and foremost a fan of these folks.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love the balance that's stricken between Moll and this series where he's not necessarily an anti-hero. He's definitely still a bad guy, but there's a lot of moments where Devin and many others are kind of understanding where he's coming from. And you see it in the last episode where we see a little bit of Moll's past, where it does contextualize where he's coming from on this.

Where those conversations had on Shadow Lord between you and Phelone of striking that balance? Well, Dave has been the overseer. My conversations were mostly with Brad and Matt McNivitz. Now, Dave, we would communicate through them. We have touched base, me and Dave, on the character. So we have had some live face-to-face talks about the character. But when it came to that kind of thing, what you're talking about,

which you saw in 108, things like that honestly and joyously were people sitting around on the floor hanging out I'm told I was eating Doritos I don't doubt that this perhaps happened but you know people hanging out on the floor and and pacing around the room and just kind of throwing ideas out at each other about how we could show mall and some private moments, you know. I mean, the show's a lot harder to make than that anyone thinks. I mean, if everyone feels like, hey, the story's just trucking along and it feels great. Well, fantastic. That's what we were going for. But Brad Rao will tell you that it's taken some figuring out because

we are doing a show where the protagonist is actually the villain. And it's an ensemble. So we have other protagonists, thank God. I don't know that I would want to watch a Star Wars show where someone was going around just hurting people. But striking that balance between Mall and the other characters, finding the viewpoints and how they

bounce off each other, and then really, really making it explicit the combat that's happening inside Mal's head and inside his heart. So, you know, things like that are really important if you're going to do a show called Mall. You know, you have to

really understand who this guy is. And also for the new viewers, we have a responsibility to show them who he is. You know, we're making a show where anyone, I mean, you could have never seen a Star Wars movie and you can come into our show and you will understand what's happening and you will be invited into Star Wars. So it's a lot of elements to balance in terms of how to how to make that show. Does that answer your question? What was the question? I don't I think it does. I think it does, and I'm curious when you talk about Maul in this episode, seeing him in private moments in the last episode. Did you always know you would get to a level where Maul breaks a little bit in this series? I don't want to say he breaks completely, but he's very composed, especially with Devin in the seven episodes prior to that.

And it's the first time we really see him full of fear, I think, in this series. Did you know that would always be a point right before the finale where you kind of get to show that other side of Maul? Well, fear is the path of the dark side. So that is ever present. When we did Spider-Mull, Dave and I talked about, Spider-Mall being the first time we ever saw Darth Moll in the Clone Wars, right? He turns up as this horrifying spider creature. He's been reduced to that because of his injuries in the movie The Phantom Menace.

And we talked about the fact that Mal's madness in that episode or those episodes, that's what all of the dark side characters are going through because the dark side is a path to madness and misery and living a life of fear. So yeah, it was very clear to me even before I saw the scripts that we had to go there, especially if we were educating people who this character is. You do need to know what motivates them.

If you're doing a show called Mall, and also he's on this questioner of, Benj, you better know exactly what that's about as an audience. So yeah, yeah, it was inevitable, I think. Did we know exactly how we were going to do it when we went in to the show some two years ago? No, but we figured it out. And I want to point out that 108 in particular, along with so much in this series, was helped mightily by Dave. You know, we had a lot of notions and we had evolving versions and all this stuff.

and Dave came in and like he does, um, asked us to go further. Encouraged us, inspired us to go further. Pushed us to go further. So, uh, you know, our early versions of what that was, what that was going to be were, you know, they were okay.

But they weren't like they were once Dave, uh, weighed in. That's when it got real special. I thought. I really enjoyed it. Do you feel nostalgic watching an episode? so like 108, where you see the flashbacks of moments in the Clone Wars that I'm sure you recorded, you know, so many years ago. Does that make you feel any nostalgia? I love it. You know, that's, that's, I think it's great that that's your perspective.

For me, you know, it's kind of like, oh, nostalgia. Look at all that suffering. Ah, I remember suffering. The suffering was, for me, it was not just nostalgia because you would be shocked to know how much we recorded for that storyline alone that, you know, that either got revised or hit the cutting room floor, you know, in regards to Spider-Mull, the dialogue that he has, although brief, was brand new for Shadow Lord. So, you know, it's funny. Someone could say, hey, we've got a few pickup lines for Spider-Mull. That does not mean you should. You should show up at the studio and you just do a few pickup lines like you have to get into that headspace and you better be losing your mind and wailing and carrying about and going through that emotional

turmoil or it's just not going to read honestly um and brad by the way did me the extraordinary favor of uh you know he came to me and he said i want you to do all of the characters in this in this world this dream world. And I'm like, what? Am I D. Baker? What's? Brad, he's an amazing talent

on the Bad Batch, but I don't know that I'm D. Baker. He's like, no, here's what I think. And he said, he said, this is all in Mal's head. And Brad, very smartly, along with Dave's help and Matt, he made sure that everything we saw

in those flashbacks. Are they flashbacks? It seems like a vision. Is the vision of flashback? How does that work? Because nothing that we see in those visions matches up with the Clone Wars or the Phantom Menace. They're different. People saying things in a different order, you know.

And the audience can take from that what they will. They can try to interpret why. We know why we did it that way. Brad knows why he did it that way. But going along with that, Brad said, it needs to be your voice with all the characters. the young savage, Sidious,

young mall, because this is mall's while it's a vision, it's also his remembrance. So this is all in his head. So you have to do it. Which,

yeah, it's a little bit of a gift for an actor, I think, you know, is intimidating, sure, but, you know,

what do I, I suppose I play four or five characters? What is it? Prime Mall, Spider Mall Sidious, Savage and Young

Mall. Yeah, so thank you, Brad. That was fun. And again, it was a lot of work, but boy, so rewarding when you see where it landed. Yeah. Some of my favorite Star Wars right there.

And what's also so great about it is that it's contrasting because you see Sidious in his version of fatherhood, really. And then you see Lawson's version of fatherhood in the same episode and people pulling together and supporting each other. And then you see Maul's version of that. It's not the same thing. It's very interesting. Yeah. It's a brilliant dichotomy that's played in the entire series there.

Yeah, with Lawson. I love it. I've heard some characters or some actors will have playlists to get into character, to get into the mindset that a character needs. Have you ever tried that? Have you ever had a playlist for mall? Like, I don't know what mall would necessarily be listening to. In my mind, it's like nine inch nails or something. But is there like a mall playlist in your mind? Yeah, he's an aha, an occasional Depeche mode guy. Okay. No, I've never really tried the music thing. You know, instead of music, it's me going into a corner in the studio and working myself into some sort of panic or something. It's, you know, Yeah, it's me going and having a mental breakdown and then jumping in front of the mic.

And then doing it. So, yeah, I'll try the music thing. That might be a lot easier. Just on the note of music, I thought of this this morning and it kind of made me giggle. And I would be curious to your answer. Who do you think Darth Mall's favorite beetle would have been? Oh. Well, you know, it would have to be John.

It would have to be John. Absolutely, John. I was thinking either John or George. I was thinking George, obviously, there's a lot of introspective sides of Mall, and George has a little bit of the introspection, but the anger and whatnot, that definitely leads itself to John. That's right. Yeah.

I also love the animated, let's call it post-vantam menace depiction of Mall as a cautionary tale and a bit of a tragedy. At what point did you feel like you unlocked that within the character in working with the creative team where, you found this is the direction where it feels like the definitive mall to me. At what point did we achieve definitive mall? Was that what you asked? Yeah, like at what point did you, I guess unlock the direction that you wanted to go?

Did you feel like we're not necessarily looking for it anymore? We've found it. Oh, right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, because it did take some time to figure it out. You know, it really did. It always does. but with mall's show

all the more so because you would think I've been doing the character for 15 years and not just in Clone Wars and Rebels but video games and audiobooks and all kinds of stuff yeah it took a while to nail this version of the character

and there was a lot of things that we did and we would redo and Brad Rowe was just absolutely instrumental in continuing to push that evolution and Athena Purs. Tio, I should say also, because she's our general. She made sure that we had every opportunity at bat to try to hit not a double or a triple, but a home run at every turn. You know, if you don't have a producer who's supporting you like that and who has a real feel for Star Wars, you're sunk

on a project like this. It's too hard. It's way too hard. But yeah, the whole key was, I think, for me when I really realized that, and I've always known this about Mall, I don't think this totally exists in the early Clone Wars version, but as he evolved, especially with his experience of Savajor Press, there is a guy inside who is trying to navigate the world and to a certain extent do what he feels is right. But between intent and action, depending on how, far they are apart, how big a gulf there is between intent and action, it can mean the difference between good and evil. Because Maul, in our show, absolutely believes he's doing the only rational thing, the only choice. And as we move on, you know, he finds Devin, he communicates

with Devin, and he speaks to her because he really recognizes, oh, I know who this is. This is, this is kind of me when I was her age. So I know exactly what to say to her to try to get her head spinning. But then Mall starts realizing, oh, that goes both ways. Okay, I'm becoming invested in this person succeeding. Huh. And how did my master treat me, says Mall, right? Not very well.

You know, it was a tool. It was tossed aside. and Maul, in order to feel righteously indignant, he needs to decide that he's different than Sidious, that there are lines that he won't cross, that Sidious would blow right past. So from Maul's perspective, this is the first time he's really defining himself.

Early Clone Wars, certainly Phantom Menace, he's doing as he was programmed, but now he's really defining who am I, who am I as a person, what do I believe, what are my principles, He's even recognizing that honor has its uses. Not well, maybe perhaps not just uses, but value, actual value. He's looking at the Jedi and saying,

there's value there that I've never seen before, and I could only see it now that they're gone. Now, unfortunately, all of those conclusions, all of those discoveries he's making can only be filtered through what he was taught by Darth Sidious. And what was he taught by Darth Sidious? A very black and white world. So he may have all of these nuanced discoveries that he's making.

But then they are filtered through the black and white filter. And suddenly intent and action, they're not the same thing, you know? And I love the way that comes across in this series, too, in the conversations with Devin. I think it's in the third episode of the series when he puts tea out for Devin. And there's that conversation in the dark. And it almost gave me, and there's been a lot episodes in this series that have given me almost Christopher Nolan vibes, visually or narratively. Like from that, I got a little bit of Raja Gould talking to Bruce Wayne in the League of Shadows. And I've seen some things even just in the crime elements of the show.

Obviously, there's like some 70s crime elements when you're at the station with Lawson. But it also feels almost heatish at times, which I know was also one of the biggest inspirations for the Dark Night. Were there any conversations about those as inspirations? You know what I said to Matt McNavitz. I said, Matt, you better feel pretty good because all the things that people are saying about the show is what you were telling me

it was going to be at the show. Brad, you better feel really good because they're picking up all those threads. So the real Brian de Palma you know French connection

type of world a little bit you know some Scorsese elements and a little bit of Coppola. I'd like to get more Coppola in there but ultimately yeah because we're a bunch of film geeks and we love that stuff

and heat certainly was brought up as an inspiration but again the other part of this is that my god Star Wars Underworld huge inspiration I wish I could have read those scripts that would have been useful

however others on the team have Dave certainly has so perhaps Perhaps I didn't need to. Perhaps I could just, you know, follow along with the trail that Brad was placing. These guys are so talented. I really have become very, very fond of Brad and Matt.

And Athena and I go back on the other projects. So, you know, it is like hanging out with your friends making your own version of Star Wars, your own very weird, wacky version of. Star Wars. But yeah, you're right. You're nailing it. You're nailing all those influences. Awesome. Yeah. Obviously, over the last 15 years of you playing the character, you've become more than that. I think you've become like an ambassador for the character beyond just the performance and the actual voice work in the shows. At what point in playing the character, did you start feeling that responsibility to kind of shepherd this character in and you're doing media like this and the way you talk about Mall, I think Star Wars fans absolutely love. the responsibility kicked in immediately because i was getting on a train back in what is it was it 2010 or 11 that he first showed up i think 10 yeah so i must have been hired in oh nine or something like that um the yeah the the responsibility was absolutely immediate um because this was a moving

train a train that was already up to 60 miles per hour thanks to uh ray park being giving an extraordinary performance for Moll and setting the bar for how dangerous and intimidating and you know it's really really made an impression on all of us when we saw that film obviously he was already a fan favorite character Peter Serafinoitz's

vocal performance you know although he had very few lines in the film he laid the groundwork for what I was going to do vocally which I'm very thankful for because that was at least one piece that I didn't have to you know that that was the foundation I could build off of that

and then you know Ian McHagg's design for mall is so successful so and it's George Lucas and there's a huge responsibility for it so you know that was I believe

that's why me and Dave were quite obsessive discussing who mall could be in the Clone Wars. Because we, I mean, I'll speak for myself. I just didn't want to get it wrong because I'm a Star Wars fan. You don't want to, you don't want to let down your fellow fans. It's, and it's always a possibility, you know, you always think about that.

So, you know, we're doing our, I guess I've been doing my best and, and, but the responsibility that the enormity of the task was very apparent to me from the moment that, you know, from the moment that Dave called me up and said, I need Darth Mall, can you do it? Even the language there, can you do it? It's not, you see, what a treat? Want to play Darth, no, it wasn't that. It was, hey man, you got to be honest with me. Are you the right guy for this? Because we can't, we can't get this wrong. And, you know, I ended up lying to him and saying that I was. Yeah, I can do that, no problem. And here we are. I'll be. I'll be. because I couldn't keep my mouth shut, I suppose.

And I feel like now 15 years on, 16 years on, whatever it may be, it's easy to forget. At the time when Maul was brought back, it was met with a lot of like, no, there's no way he survived. Sure. I was silly. I was 12 years old, and I was a little close-minded about it. I was like, you're telling me, Darth Maul survived that.

And it took a couple episodes for me to be like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Thank God, Maul is back. We need more Mall. So I feel like you really had to fight an uphill back. that, you know, if you're a kid that loves this stuff now, you didn't go through that. You just know Mall as his Clone Wars character now. Oh, I remember it very well. I remember that about a week, I was the man who ruined Darth Mall because Spider-Mall, no one was expecting that. Some people saw it for what it was. I mean, they all look at it finally now, which is really cool. Everyone wants

to talk about Spider-Mull with me. But back then, if you're expecting Darth-Mall and you get this crazed dude with garbage legs. That's not what you're expecting. You know, there were those who understood, oh, this is a story. There was a real cost to Darth Mall having essentially died. Now he's in the underworld. And his brother has to essentially go down into hell and pluck him out. And he has been damaged physically, psychically, emotionally.

You know, he's been very, very damaged. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. That was the code name for our series was metal. I love that. So you go like, well, is that the most metal thing we could do? You know, what do you think, dude? So, yeah, you know, the mythology with this guy

has always been front and center. And yeah, but I do know what it's like. For a week, you know, I received some interesting comments on social media. And I knew I would, which is, you know, it's one of the reasons why I'm like, well, when he gets his mind back, I'm going to give them a full episode, where he sounds as close to Peter Serafinoids as I can get him.

And then we will start branching off to what me and Dave talked about in terms of what his personality would be. You know, because we felt that Phantomenes with so few dialogue, that's just him saying, yes sir, no sir, yes sir, standing on ceremony for his master and stuff like that. So there was a responsibility to create what we thought his personality was. but it's important, I think, to give the fans exactly what they're asking for at some point. You know, because oftentimes fans have their theories and everyone has their theories.

And you can't really be, you can't be guided entirely by that, but you must be aware of that. And especially when the fans are dead right and know what they want. You know, you get it. You have to observe some of that. And, you know, because sometimes they want something for a very good reason, you know. But it's funny. It's, I remember David Collins talked to me about, we were talking about characters dying and coming back. And David Collins pointed out.

He's like, well, the gold standard is Star Trek 3. I'm like, you're right. Oh, my God, you're right. Because Spock's death. Spoiler with her. was so traumatic. And it would have been a cheat to just bring him back too easily.

You only can get away with it if it's an extraordinary story and it's costly as hell to bring the character back. And Star Trek 3, like the sacrifices that are made and the things that happened to that crew trying to help their friend

is quite extraordinary. It's huge. You know? Like all those things happen to those people. And again, I'm trying not to spoil it in case some younger audience members.

I mean, I guess I just spoiled Star Trek too, but it's funny. We think about Star Trek a lot because one of the prototypes for, for Mall is Khan. You know?

Yeah. Khan is like a, you know, mall has descended from Khan in many ways. So, yeah, anyway, don't get me started on these franchises. You know, I don't know how I feel about the word franchise. Mythologies, these mythologies.

Yeah. Modern myths. And just speaking of your conversations about Mal for the past 15 years, whether it be with Dave, whether it be with Star Wars fans, whether it be with media, do you feel like there's one misconception about Mal that you would kind of like to clear up? Is there any one big misconception? Well, you know, I don't know that it's something that I need to clear up.

I will say this, and I will just quote Leonard Nimoy since we're talking about Star Trek. Perfect. I won't talk about it in terms of mall. But I will give you a quote that Leonard Nimoy gave about Spock, who is one of the most exquisitely crafted, amazing original characters in sci-fi history. In, you know, I mean, Spock is a literature character. he's extraordinary. Played by Leonard Nimoy so smartly.

And Leonard Nimoy said, he goes, you know, I always get amused when people talk to me about Spock and they say, what's it like to play a character that doesn't have any emotions? And Nimoy would go, well, that's funny because I never played Spock like that. I played Spock as an extremely emotional man

who was trying to keep a lid on it. Yeah. And I remember hearing that quote, very early on in my acting career and I was like oh oh that's that's almost you need to take some lessons from that in almost every character you know that human beings are complex they have a lot going on inside and a lot of things that are going inside in opposition to other things that they have going on inside and that tension creates drama and it gives people something to relate to so relate that quote of Leonard Nimoy to how I feel about Darth Mall. It's very simple. I have

very, very, very strong opinions about what this character is feeling versus what he is doing. I don't think that they are always the same thing. And the audience, I mean, I get the privilege of going to Collins and talking to fans and the audience picks up on all of this. They're very

in tune with what this character is feeling. So. I think it's interesting. It's brilliant. I really appreciate the time. I think all fans appreciate your performance. We're all looking forward to the finale coming up next week. Once again, thank you.

I just getting to pick your brain about Star Wars, about Mall, it's a blast. Oh, thank you. And I suppose we're going to see if we stick the landing, aren't we? I've got faith. Yeah, here we go. I will tell you, the last two episodes are quite a ride. Oh, boy. I'm so excited.

Thanks, man. Thank you.