James Earl Jones Signed Over AI Voice Rights to Darth Vader Before His Death

James Earl Jones had a singular voice: Rich, deep, and resonant, his rumbly bass lent itself well to regal sturdiness, as in The Lion King, or ominous menace, as in the original Star Wars trilogy. It was recognizable anywhere—which is why, when the spin-off miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi premiered in the summer of 2022, fans were quick to notice something was off.

By that September, Vanity Fair had gotten to the bottom of the mystery. The culprit? Artificial intelligence.

The magazine reported that Jones, then 91 years old, had quietly stepped back from voicing Darth Vader. But in order to allow his iconic Sith Lord to remain an ongoing presence in that galaxy far, far away, he signed over the rights to his archival voice work to a Ukrainian startup. The company, Respeecher, then used A.I. to pore over the sound bites that Jones had recorded over the years in order to “clone” his voice.

Read more at The Daily Beast.