Greez Ditrus Speaks: Talking ‘Star Wars’ with Daniel Roebuck

Daniel Roebuck star wars
Daniel Roebuck portrait courtesy of Daniel Roebuck / 'Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order' published by Electronic Arts

The last couple of months have been huge for Star Wars with the release of The Mandalorian, The Rise of Skywalker, and the hit video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Actor Daniel Roebuck (3 from Hell, The River’s Edge) is just as much a fan of the saga as we are, so it was great to see him become part of it. Roebuck plays Greez Ditrus, the pilot of the Stinger Mantis in Jedi: Fallen Order. The character is quickly becoming a fan favorite, and the game itself has been met with critical acclaim. After returning home from traveling, Roebuck is speaking to me from his Burbank home and he’s hanging out in his monster room which is a major collection of classic horror toys, masks, and other monster goodies.

Horror Geek Life: I need to take a minute to thank you again for getting my Dudes record signed by yourself, Jon Cryer, and Catherine Mary Stewart.

Daniel Roebuck: Dude, I’m just glad I remembered where I put it when I saw them.

HGL: It was funny, you texted me that picture of the three of you holding the record and my daughter was the one who saw it first and yelled through the house, “Dad, Norman just sent you a picture!” Of course she was referring to your character from 9-1-1.

DR: That’s so funny! How old is your daughter?

HGL: She’s eleven.

DR: It’s crazy, kids love that show.

HGL: She just couldn’t believe that I knew Norman from her favorite show.

DR: That’s a sweet story. You know, Jon Cryer is such a nice guy and Catherine, is just absolutely beautiful, inside and out.

HGL: She was one of my childhood crushes.

DR: She was my actual crush (laughs)!

HGL: I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who also happens to be a friend of yours. Jon-Mikl Thor wanted to make sure I told you hi.

DR: Wow! Jon-Mikl Thor! The guy who connected us, John Fasano, passed away a few years ago. It’s so horrible that he’s gone. How do you know Jon, do you do promotion for music too?

HGL: Yeah, but now I’ve been working as his assistant manager. When he’s on tour, things are fielded through me so he can concentrate on the shows, we run his web shop together, I do up press releases, and whatever else I can help with.

DR: He’s just a really great guy!

HGL: Absolutely! He’s done a lot for me over the last couple years and he’s a good friend.

DR: Is he still playing out pretty often?

HGL: A couple times a year he will go out and do a handful of shows. Not like he used to.

DR: He’s a sixty-four-year-old guy, it has to be a lot.

HGL: It can be and I’m happy that I can help him out.

DR: That’s great! I love it! The connections in our lives are so amazing and there’s so much more that connects us together than we will ever know. There are people out there who feel sad and disconnected and all they have to do is reach out and they will learn how to connect to others.

HGL: Life is such a weird cycle and you never really know where those connections might take you.

DR: All you have to do is just take that moment to say hello to someone. Two days ago, I was in Alberta, Canada, and we randomly had a screening of Getting Grace. I went to this girls’ college basketball game and during intermission, I get up and told everyone we were going to have a screening of our movie. So, a few minutes later when I get up to leave, this guy comes running up to me and asks if I was Greez from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. I told him I was and he asked if I would sign his game. I was like, “Dude, how do you have this with you?” He didn’t, but lived two blocks away. The minute he realized who I was, he ran home and grabbed it. When that guy woke up, he had no idea he was going to meet someone pertinent to something he liked. So he nabbed the very first Greez autograph.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) / 20th Century Fox

HGL: Were you a big Star Wars fan growing up?

DR: Huge! There were two movies I felt were always directed right at me, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was thirteen when Star Wars came out and eighteen when Raiders was released, and just felt they were beamed down just for me. Growing up, I watched plenty of serials and such so I knew where the source material for Raiders came from and thought it was all suave, debonair, sexy, and I felt I could be Indiana Jones. But Star Wars, I don’t think you could have found a more rabid fan. I met this guy the other day and he saw the original film, in the theater, ninety-two times.

HGL: I may have seen it that many times over the span of my entire life but not the year it came out.

DR: I saw it five times when it came out we just kept going back. I was so in love with it that I bought the Super 8, seven-minute film version. It’s a two hundred-foot, black and white film that has no sound.

HGL: Now that’s hardcore!

DR: I just wanted to see those images in front of me again.

HGL: I was around nine when Jedi came out and I still remember waiting in line for hours to see it.

DR: Those are great memories, right?

HGL: Oh yeah! The best!

DR: I remember waiting in line and who I was talking to when I went to see Close Encounters for the first time. That’s the great thing about movie fandom, you remember when you saw it, what year it was, who you were with, it’s just great!

HGL: It was the same thing for me when I saw Jedi. I was with my mom, uncle, and three cousins. I remember watching everyone and getting jealous of the people going in before me.

DR: Those bastards (laughs)! They’re gonna know everything first!

HGL: Funny part was that I remember watching a scene with The Emperor and the Force was flowing through his hands. I held my hands in the same position and I swore I felt the Force flowing through me in that moment.

DR: (laughs) I love that! That’s so fantastic!

HGL: Obviously, the Force wasn’t flowing through me, but it’s the magic of movies and how they make you feel alive.

DR: They have the power to move you like that. Now imagine this, feeling like that as a kid then actually becoming part of the story, the mythology. That’s how I feel. And with video games and Jedi: Fallen Order, you can be a part of that story.

‘Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’ (2019) / Electronic Arts

HGL: I was blown away by the Star Wars: Battlefront game. It had a mission you had to play out with the PlayStation VR. Flying an X-Wing in virtual reality was magical in its own way.

DR:  Does Jedi: Fallen Order have a VR component?

HGL: I don’t think it does, but that doesn’t mean they won’t release a VR mission for it somewhere down the line. So how did you end up involved in the game?

DR: I went to audition for a game with a different title. I was talking about Templar Knights and auditioned for a guy I’m very fond of named Tom Keegan who is the performance director. There’s also a cinematic director, story director, as well as a game director that oversees everyone. I did the audition and it went great. Then Tom said, “Lets do it again but instead of saying Templar Knight, say Jedi Knight.” If you think you felt the Force throwing through your hands, when he said that, I felt the Force. I was very nervous from that point on, but I nailed it. My daughter knows the exact day I auditioned because she came with me and that same night she met her boyfriend. That was in August and they told me I had it in December. I finally started in January.

HGL: Tell me a bit about your character Greez and your experience performing for the game.

DR: He’s the irascible pilot, a little rough and grumpy, but he really is a Star Wars-styled character. I hope I was able to imbue him with more than just a one-dimensional personality. I definitely had great actors to work against, a great director, so I think we all really did fantastic. You play the game as Cal Kestis, through your missions, you work with Greez and pick up several stragglers along the way. It was great playing the guy who flies the ship. When you have a great story to tell it really makes the process so much easier. I’m six-foot tall and Greez is four-foot tall so it took me a couple days to get it because I was trying to play him as a small character. If you’re Joe Pesci, you make yourself big so once I figured that out, Greez became a much larger character in spirit. I found the way to deliver the lines that made sense and that applies to all areas of acting. He’s a mercenary who finds himself in a situation he didn’t expect to find himself in, so he has to rise to the occasion like the other characters do.

HGL: You’ve previously worked on some video games before doing motion capture stuff.

DR: Yeah, I did L.A. Noire, but that one was something else entirely. If you remember, that game you were given all these choices like to believe or not to believe. When we shot, we would shoot our bodies and head one way, then in this totally weird environment we would only shoot our heads and we were directed to lie, tell the truth, then lie again. When you see it all put together it was so crazy, it was really me in there.

HGL: That was such a unique game.

DR: I was honored to be a part of it. I also play Gary in Dead Rising 3, that experience was similar to this new one. Gary wasn’t as multi-dimensional as Greez, though. People tell me they really like the character in the game. I’m hoping people like Greez and the early word online is that he’s becoming a fan favorite and I like that.

Courtesy of Daniel Roebuck

HGL: Are you much of a gamer?

DR: No, I’m not but I did by the PS4 bundle. You know me, dude, my character’s picture is on the box so I had to have it.

HGL: I try to make time to play games, but I just never really have enough time. My daughter and I will play though from time to time.

DR: I could have done that with my son, but I would rather he be out playing ball as opposed to sitting on the couch playing a video game, unless the game is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

HGL: You’re about to step behind the camera again for The Hail Mary. Can you tell me a bit about that?

DR: I’m really excited, we are going to be getting it going but making an independent film is never easy. I’m trying something new, it’s a not-for-profit called A Channel of Peace with the intention of it being the force behind making The Hail Mary. It’s the story of this nun who finds a guy who needs redemption and cons him into starting a football team for her all-boys Catholic school. It’s more of a comedy, but it will have some dramatic elements. It’s something I want to make that audiences can watch with their families and not cringe at it. It will have an element of faith, but I don’t want to beat you over the head with it. It’s the most effective way to go because I’ve seen some of those movies, and they’re only made for one audience. When you’re preaching to the choir, you’re feeding them the simple outcome that’s not a really real outcome and it doesn’t really feel authentic. I think it’s better to preach to the people who are driving past the church, not the ones who sing in the choir. I just want to remind people that we live in a glorious world filled with glorious opportunity no matter what the news tells us, so many lies. The world is mostly a great place so until it becomes a rotten place, we have to celebrate everything it has to offer. If it becomes rotten, we have to come together to change it.

HGL: More people should spend their time celebrating as opposed to complaining and focusing on the bad things. There’s a lot of good out there that goes unnoticed.

DR: Exactly! You have kids, so I know you have the fear of all these school shootings. All you ever hear about is the guns or how he got them into the school. We really should be focusing on the child and how we failed him. The gun didn’t shoot itself, the kid pulled the trigger so we need to learn how we have failed and what drove him to make those decisions. That’s the problem, we’re asking the wrong questions. We need to let everyone of these kids that they’re loved as God loves us, mistakes and all.

HGL: It just seems like adults are putting too much pressure on these kids and it all becomes really stressful. Their young minds can’t always keep up with what’s being expected of them.

DR: That can also start with us as parents, too. Expecting kids to know what college they want to go to in seventh grade, SAT scores, all this stuff adds up. We need to back off a little and start some sort of program where every child knows they have a purpose that’s positive. My kids were never spoiled or coddled, they were disciplined and raised in a way that they knew mistakes could be made and they could grow and learn from them. I never let them become failures and I’m proud of how they turned out and they’re good people.

HGL: My oldest daughter struggled when she was younger, but I like to think that why my wife and I handled and helped her through everything, it helped her to become the person she is now. She’s responsible, with a good dude, and they just had their first child two months ago, so she’s my first grandchild.

DR: Dude, that’s huge! Congratulations! That’s great, great news!

HGL: Watching her with the baby, how she takes care of her makes us feel like we did something right. It was a proud moment.

DR: It’s funny being the father of a girl. You spend most your time telling boys to stay away from her then she finds a good one and you get after her so she doesn’t mess it up (laughs).

HGL: He’s a good guy and he’s going to be a great dad.

DR: That’s great, at least you don’t have to deal with anymore of the test dummies (laughs).

HGL: Last time we talked (read that here), I didn’t get a chance to bring this up, but you’ve worked with one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Don Coscarelli.

DR: Oh my gosh! He might actually be one of the nicest guys I’ve met in my entire life, not to mention one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. That makes him almost Saint like. He’s such an amazing collaborator. I was watching some of John Dies at the End the other day and just laughed at the ridiculousness of my character. He kept apologizing to me because you could see my face but I really didn’t care. I’ve worked wearing so many different masks in my career that it never really bothered me. I’ve been in Star Wars, been killed by Michael Myers, and killed by the Tall Man’s sphere.

HGL: Phantasm is one of my all-time favorite horror films.

DR: The Tall Man carrying the cardboard coffin. Just remember the first time you saw that and not knowing it was a cardboard coffin. “How the hell did he do that?” Scary stuff, right?

HGL: Just watching how the Tall Man moved in that first film always just freaked me out; the way he glared.

DR: Yes! The joke was on us, though, because Angus Scrimm was the most gracious person you could meet.

HGL: I never had the chance to meet Angus. I always admired him and followed his career. This past year, I wrote a piece in remembrance of his passing and I was honored to see it shared all over Don’s page, and the official Phantasm social media pages. That was a pretty amazing feeling.

DR: That’s so great. You wrote something straight from the heart and to have it recognized like that. I’ve really been blessed in my career and have worked with some amazing people. One day though, I would love to work for Spielberg. But come on, J.J. Abrams, Don Coscarelli, and Rob Zombie, I’d do anything for them. They’re such talented people and they have that independent spirit that I have myself and make independent films myself, just like those guys.

HGL: As much as I enjoy the mega-budgeted Hollywood stuff, the most interesting stuff in film is happening on the independent circuit.

DR: Oh yeah, without question. If you’re going to make a movie about a nun, in order to get money from a studio you’re going to have to get a name, someone like Taylor Swift. You get a name, you can get that money as well as foreign distribution based off that name alone. When you work independently, you can cast whoever you want and do things your own way. You have to get the money on your own but that movie is yours and you make it how you want to. Don Coscarelli is a perfect example. In my opinion, as much as I liked Phantasm II, which was a studio film, the third was a much better film.

HGL: Yeah, and I’ll go even one step further, Phantasm IV: Oblivion was the most interesting of the bunch because the way he incorporated the old footage from the original film into the narrative of that one was just brilliant.

DR: Oh yes! That was great. Really imaginative! I had the idea once to film my son, who looks so much like I did at that age, on a green screen in a couple of different costumes and have him turn and look a couple different ways so if somewhere down the line, I need to put a younger me in a scene, I’ll already have the footage. Have you seen the new Terminator yet?

HGL: No, I haven’t.

DR: They do some stuff with Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton to make them look like they did T2. The movie really isn’t that good, and they make one huge error in judgment and none of it makes sense. You can make a movie where everything isn’t right, but it still feels right. Or you can be like that movie and that one thing that doesn’t make sense ends up making the whole thing feel as if it doesn’t make sense. Now, I’m just babbling on, I’m sure you don’t want to hear my film reviews (laughs).

HGL: You have a ton of new projects coming up, is there anything you’d like to say about them?

DR: We just finished working on My Brother’s Crossing, which is a lovely true story about a guy who has a brother killed in an unfortunate accident. There’s a manslaughter case against the guy who caused the accident and the brother pays the fines of the man responsible and the two become great friends and start a ministry. I’m excited for that, it’s a really beautiful story.

I will tempt you with this: I have something coming up that I’m not going to say anything else about, but you’re smart enough to figure something out, but imagine a thing for your friend Daniel Roebuck that would be as exciting for him as Star Wars.

HGL: And now, I am left to ponder over that statement and I can only imagine what it might be. I have a couple of ideas and when it’s announced, I’ll be sure to let you know. Once again, a huge thank you, Dan, for taking the time to talk with me, it’s always a pleasure.

‘Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order’ is available now. ‘Getting Grace‘ is currently streaming on Hulu and is available on DVD as well.


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