IAmBenSchwartz

So, I'm going to try and take you through my thought process. Is a hot dog a sandwich? Off the bat, I'm disappointed by the question, because a hot dog by itself could be just the actual hot dog. I feel like if you pop a bun on it and throw a condiment on it, then you've got a sandwich. But a hot dog by itself? No. I would say, like turkey by itself is not a sandwich. It's something that can make a sandwich. And I just feel like if you had another shot, you could have changed that question. And I apologize. But I would say no to hot dog, pop a bun on it and I'm with you.

Harris Wittels was a writer on Parks and Recreation who passed away very young, and he was so funny. If we're talking about Harris, I would urge for people who haven't heard of him or about him to look up his stuff. Go on YouTube, there's something that he did for Comedy Bang Bang that turned into something called Phone Corner, and it's him going through his phone and him saying the jokes that he wrote down that are so cheesy, and they're so smart and so funny, but he would deliver them in such a dry way.

I'm so happy you brought it up, because this is a chance for people to look up who Harris Wittels is, his stand up, his writing, everything . . . and also he acted on Parks as one of the animal control people! But go to YouTube, look up Phone Corner, and you would see how lovely and brilliant Harris is. Just a really good, good human being, and very sad that he passed away, but I'm so happy someone brought him up because hopefully it will make other people learn about him.

So, I was lucky enough that when JJ Abrams was making the new Star Wars film, he came home on a little break and he said, "Hey I have this new droid called BB-8, and I want him to have personality. You know, everybody loves R2-D2, but I want to put him in situations where he can feel warmth, and he can be funny, and he can do all these things." Because he had these big scenes with Rey - and I can talk about it all finally - all these big scenes with Daisy Ridley's character, and John Boyega's character, and so the process was at the beginning. We wrote real dialogue for him.

So, there's recordings of me overseeing this. JJ would show me scenes, and I would say real dialogue as BB-8 in response to whatever Rey or people were saying. And then, the goal was to give that to LucasFilms and they would turn them into beeps and boops. So they tried it, and when it came back, I feel like it felt like… you can feel like it was a human being turned into beeps and boops. So then they gave me a synthesizer, and this great sound guy named Robby Stambler - when we were in the room for hours, I would call us “The Beautiful Boys,” because we both looked terrible. Nah, he's a great guy. But Robby Stambler, amazing sound guy, and we did this thing where I would take this microphone that was hooked into a computer, and I'd literally try to do the beeps and boops.

First, we tried it with words, and it didn't work. And then I tried to do the beeps and boops. And in the end, we did a bunch and bunch of scenes, and I was very fortunate and got to see the movie beforehand, and all this stuff and really work with it. I don't know how much of those are in it, but I was told by the editors that all the dialogue that I did for the film was used while they edited. So, if Rey, Daisy Ridley's character, is having a scene with BB-8, they would edit with my dialogue in there to know when to cut to back and stuff like that. And I was so excited, because I don't know how much percent of my actual voice is in there, hopefully there is some, but I know that all the editors were so kind to me in saying that it really helped with the way they edit, and the cadence.

Ooh, great question! Yes of course, that rubber duck, I'm very very close with, I will never let that rubber duck down. It was, I think there was a series of props that the person brought for the shoot, and I was like, "That! I want that." Because we were supposed to shoot in a bathroom setting, and then I was like, "But how crazy would it be if I had a rubber duck outside of the bathroom?" So I think we had it in a shower.

But that's why, because I saw that prop and immediately was like, "I'm a child, I would like to have this next to my face and take a picture of it."

u/fuckswithducks, I'm loving the username. Keep going with it. Stick with it baby. I'm really into the idea of this, what you're about, and hope to hear more from you in the future. I hope I put myself in a situation where I talk about ducks enough! It may happen in the future. I can't tell you why but it may happen in the future.

Oh, you know what I just read which I loved? When you're an actor, you spend a lot of time reading screenplays, so when you get time to read an actual book, what I do is I buy the physical book itself always, and I read "Ready Player One" and I was so in love with that book and immediately found out afterwards that someone bought the rights and I was like "Oh my goodness, I would do anything to be in it". But I remember reading that book and feeling a very strong connection with it. And Ernest Cline who is the author wrote a new book called "Armarda," and I bought it but it's on my desk but I haven't read it yet. But "Ready Player One". I loved it. I love love loved it.