Remembering James Earl Jones (1931–2024)

Anton: Well, brothers, one of the greatest voices to ever be heard on the silver screen has gone silent. James Earl Jones passed away this week at the age of 93. Of course, everyone knows him as the voice of Darth Vader. It’s impossible to imagine a voice other than Jones’s deep bass for Darth Vader. There are few performances more iconic, especially his Vader in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), with all those famous lines. We’ll have to resist just quoting them all, as I try to think of another movie actor more famous for vocal work.

Aren: James Earl Jones was a legend. But he also wasn’t just a voice actor, which makes him unique. He’s not Mel Blanc, if we’re talking classic cinema, or Billy West for voice acting today. Perhaps the closest comparison is someone like Boris Karloff, whose vocal work (especially on 1966’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!) is arguably as iconic as his live action performances. But Jones is truly singular. What an incredible voice. I agree, it’s actually impossible to imagine Darth Vader without his voice.

Anders: Karloff is a great comp, because while Jones was often remembered for his roles in fan-favourite films, like the Star Wars films and Disney’s The Lion King, he was indeed a multi-talented dramatic actor with a long resume, which we’ll get into. But he’s so ingrained in the popular love for those two vocal performances, Mufasa and Darth Vader, that fans have never really accepted a replacement in later entries. I think it’s notable that in the 2019 Lion King live-action remake, Jones is the only cast member that Favreau chose not to recast.

Anton: It’s perhaps fitting, then, that IMDb lists his performance as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries from 2022 as his last performance.

Aren: Well, Jones’s true last performance is in 2021’s Coming 2 America, the Eddie Murphy legacy sequel to the 1988 original. The Vader voice in Obi-Wan Kenobi was accomplished through the AI software Respeecher, using archival tapes of his voice from past movies. Jones signed a contract allowing Disney to do this, but he didn’t record anything new.

Anton: Wow, that’s interesting, Aren. I’m curious how much longer they will keep using his AI-generated voice. 

Aren: I think it’s in perpetuity, which means that Jones will always be the voice of Darth Vader.

Anton: Anders, I agree that Mufasa is his second most iconic role after Vader. Jones’s casting brought such gravitas to the character of Mufasa, which is so important for the story. We have to assume Mufasa is wise and powerful for Scar’s betrayal and Simba’s quest to work, narratively.

Aren: Mufasa is a hugely influential role, especially for people my age, who were little when the movie came out in 1994. Mufasa became the platonic ideal of the regal father for a whole generation of kids. It’s funny, then, that Jones personified both the best dad ever (Mufasa, who literally dies to save his son) and the worst dad ever (Darth Vader).

Anton: Great contrast!

Aren: I’ll also always be fond of his guest part on the first “Treehouse of Horror” episode in the second season of The Simpsons in 1990, where he recites Egar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Even as a kid, having Jones recite it burns the poem into your brain.

Anton: Of course, Jones was also much more than simply a voice, as you’ve both noted already. He had a long career on stage, which I’m not very familiar with, and he was well-known as a Shakespearean actor.

Aren: I believe he made his name on the stage playing Othello as well as Brutus Jones in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, which would’ve been amazing to see. He was probably best known in the theatrical world for his performances in August Wilson plays, such as Troy Maxson in Fences. Denzel Washington ended up playing Troy in his 2016 film adaptation of Fences, which Washington also directed. Of course, Washington idolized Jones, and touchingly paid him tribute this past week. So his playing Troy was a tribute to Jones. I wish I could’ve seen Jones on stage. Just imagine hearing his voice rumble throughout the auditorium.

Anders: I would have loved to see him on stage.

Anton: That would have been incredible. 

One of his first screen performances is in the great doomsday comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Anders: I always loved noting his role in Dr. Strangelove, where he interestingly plays just a regular guy, one of the crew members of Slim Pickens’ fateful bomber.

Another memorable role is as the evil Thulsa Doom in John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian (1982). He lends the villain a sense of significance that is necessary to set against Schwarzenegger’s imposing Cimmerian, and Jones does it despite his silly-looking wig and the general wildness of that fantasy film!

Anton: One of his other father-king characters, King Jaffe Joffer in the comedy Coming to America (1988), is a clever performance, humorously combining the instant authority his voice evokes alongside a mischievousness and jolly lasciviousness. Man, he played a lot of kings and lords!

Aren: Have you seen Exorcist II: The Heretic? 

Anders: Oh, I have. It’s awful. Haha. I didn’t even want to sully his name in my ranking where I panned it.

Aren: He plays a pagan tribal lord in that sequel and is decked out in furs. It’s terrible, but it reminded me of Conan. There are also a bunch of smaller roles that Jones played as he got older. These include Admiral James Greer in the three Jack Ryan movies, The Hunt for Red October (1990), Patriot Games (1992), and Clear and Present Danger (1994). They aren’t complex performances, but it was still great to see Jones in them, as he has that instant on-screen charisma that makes you pay attention to a character on screen. If Jones played the character, he was worth taking seriously.

Anton: In the late 80s and early 90s, he also played benevolent recluses in two movies about baseball: Field of Dreams (1989) and The Sandlot (1993). As Mr. Mertle in The Sandlot, he plays a blind former baseball player, who manages the junkyard beside the empty lot where the boys play baseball. The boys are all terrified of his giant guard dog, but when we finally meet Mertle, Jones’s casting hints that he might not be the scary figure they were expecting. Sure, he has that booming voice, but there’s so much warmth when he recounts his memories of baseball and Babe Ruth.

Aren: His work in Field of Dreams might be my favourite performance of his aside from Vader. Cast in the fictional J.D. Salinger-type role, Jones hides a lot of warmth behind an icy exterior, which is almost entirely a projection of his voice. He could be very imposing when he wanted to be.

Anders: I agree. Terrance Mann in Field of Dreams is a great role. He’s very warm and inviting, despite his initial rebuffing of Costner’s Ray Kinsella. It’s an interesting role, since in the novel the film is based on, the character is actually J.D. Salinger! But casting Jones brings both this gravitas and strength that belies a kindness and massive smile. It also introduces a racial element that in a story about baseball is so important, given the history of segregation in the sport, particularly in the era that is lionized in the film. Jones helps make the film even more than the sum of its parts.

Aren: Jones’s delivery of the big speech in Field of Dreams is so amazing. The screenplay, by Phil Alden Robinson, is based on W. P. Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe. It’s a great speech, which sums up the appeal of baseball better than almost anything else in art, but delivered by Jones, it’s sublime. His casting in Field of Dreams also references his work as Troy Maxson in Fences, since Troy is a bitter former Negro Leagues player who never made it to the majors because his baseball career pre-dated integration.

Anton: It’s interesting how certain common characteristics kept being attached to his roles, whether they be kings, fathers, or former baseball players. There’s a consistency across his most famous performances. 

Anders: It's interesting to me that he kind of embodied a type of American figure that was deeply wanted: a strong, capable African-American father-figure. His presence, even if he was a villain, was symbolic of a kind of projection of American strength that is rarely noted. I suspect it’s also why one of his smallest roles might be the one that people the world over heard the most frequently: his intonation of “This is CNN” for Ted Turner’s pioneering cable news network. It made you feel like whatever you were going to see in the days’ news, whether mundane or world shaking, was important.

Anton: That example really encapsulates one of his gifts as an actor: his ability, especially through his iconic voice but also through his big smiles and other actions, to make something or someone, an event or character, seem important, seem of great significance. And I think that’s one reason we have seen a lot of outpourings of praise for James Earl Jones after his passing, and why so many of his performances are going to be with us, impacting us, for years to come.

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