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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Press Kit: Marvin

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Press Kit
Marvin: Warwick Davis and Alan Rickman Play a Robot in the Throes of Depression

Ever since fans first discovered The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the story's most popular and beloved characters has always been Marvin the Paranoid Android, a robot built by Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as part of their mandate to create androids with GPP - Genuine People Personalities. Indeed, Marvin's programming has produced some utterly human quirks that have made him entirely miserable. Douglas Adams once said that Marvin descended "from a long line of literary depressives, from A.A. Milne's Eeyore to Jacques in Shakespeare's 'As You Like It.'"

Wherever he came from, Marvin's perpetually pessimistic outlook on life struck a chord with fans everywhere. The celebrated rock band Radiohead even wrote a song entitled Paranoid Android. So the filmmakers knew fans would be especially curious about how he would be depicted.

To create Marvin, the filmmakers first approached production designer Joel Collins to come up with an original concept for the unhappy android that would avoid any robot cliches. Since Marvin is noted by Douglas Adams to have a brain the size of a planet, albeit a depressed one, Collins came up with a concept for a costume that would involve an enormous robotic head that sort of flops onto his neck in a typical downtrodden expression. He also decided Marvin should be on the tiny side - and entirely too cute to be so down in the dumps.

"We were wondering what would add even further to his depression, and we thought 'if everyone was looking down at you, that would only make it worse,'" explains Nick Goldsmith. "So we also decided to make him very small and also very cute, on the assumption that if you were just incredibly intelligent and remarkably depressed, it would be a nightmare to also look very cute!"

The design was ferried to Jim Henson's Creature Shop which turned it into fiberglass reality. Now, with the 55-pound costume created, the diminutive, 85-pound Warwick Davis, who played the lead in the fantasy-adventure Willow and starred in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, was cast to take on the physically demanding role of Marvin. Teetering under the weight of Marvin's huge head, Warwick Davis was in constant danger of toppling over, but found a way to bring out the robot within.

Says Davis: "This is one of the most challenging projects I've ever worked on. I've done films where I've spent four hours in makeup, but this was harder. The suit weighed almost as much as I do, but it had to be a very controlled performance. It was so tricky for Marvin to move at all, at first I thought that 'it's no wonder he's depressed!' But after a while, it really began to come alive - the nuances and subtleties came out even underneath the costume. I discovered that Marvin's performance had to come from within me, from my emotion. It wasn't simply a matter of 'operating' the suit."

Later, one of Hollywood's most lauded actors, Alan Rickman, added the robot's notoriously depressed voice to the proceedings. Says Nick Goldsmith: "It was a real thrill to record Alan Rickman. His voice just seems to be the ultimate match for this self-loathing robot."