Close Encounters
BEN BAILEY SMITH
The other Doc Brown travels to a galaxy far, far away in Andor
Words by Richard Edwards
FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS
Ben Bailey Smith ducks away from our Zoom chat for a few seconds. He returns holding a photograph of his six-year-old self at Christmas 1983, dressed as Darth Vader with a toy AT-AT at his feet. “The Darth Vader outfit was like a bin bag,” he laughs, “but I was just over the moon. Return Of The Jedi was the first movie I ever saw in the cinema, and my relationship with Star Wars has been obsessive basically for as long as I can remember.”
It’s no exaggeration, then, to report that his role as Imperial officer Blevin in Disney+’s latest Star Wars TV show Andor is something of a dream come true for the actor, author, comedian and rapper who sometimes goes by the SFX-friendly pseudonym of Doc Brown. “Every day on set I wore the Star Wars socks that my wife bought me for Christmas,” Smith admits. “They’re black and on the ankles they’ve got an embroidered face of Vader or a little TIE Fighter. No one would ever know I was wearing them, but it meant a lot to me.”