Qui Gon in Episode 2 or 3.

picked this up over at Tf.N

Liam "Qui-Gon" Neeson has been interviewed by Italian journalists here for Taormina Film Festival, and he spoke about SW.
Was the work for Episode 1 frustrating?
Liam Neeson: It was a movie dominated by Special Effects, and any actor may feel "manipulated" during that sort of work. I had to act, in the 95% of my scenes, without nobody to speak to, reacting to nothing. It's not "the best" for any actor, but I'd really like to be in another movie of the New Trilogy.


Will you appear in Episode 2?
Liam Neeson: No! Maybe I'll be in the third one...


95%??? I don't think it was that much. maybe 95% of the scenes contained effects, but i doubt 95% of his dialogue was to watto and jar jar and boss nass. well, i guess he was just exaggerating!

I think he was exaggerating. It is true that around 90%-95% of the secenes had been digitally altered in some way, but I don't think he would have had that many scenes of him by himself.

I read once that Jar0Jar was in something like 75% of the scenes

It wouldn't be just scenes with Watto or Jar Jar where he'd have to act and react to things that are not there. Every scene where he's fighting a battle droid, every scene where he's deflecting a laser bolt, also count. So even if he's not alone in a scene, he may be forced to pretend element of the scene is there when it isn't and is forced to react to that invisible element. It could very well be 95% of his scenes.

do you think that all his lines with shmi, anakin, amidala, obi wan, the council, etc... occupy 5% or less of his dialogue?

No. But it could be 5% of his scenes. An actor is acting even when he's not speaking. How many times do you see him fighting without speaking? During the Maul fight, I'm sure he had to react to his surroundings -- and those surroundings weren't there. There are plenty of non-speaking places where Liam had to react to things that were not there -- and even in some of his scenes where he was with Shmi, Anakin, and Padme, there were probably elements to the scene that were not there that, as an actor, he had to keep in mind were going to be there when the final product came out, and thus had to act as if they were there. Like the pod race scene. He really wasn't standing on that platform watching pods race, just an example...

He said he had to act "without no one to speak to, reacting to nothing." Those are two separate examples. There are some scenes where he had to act with nothing to speak to, and there are are some places where he was expected to react to something that wasn't there. Those two elements together might have made up 95% of his scenes, because even in scenes where he had people to speak to, there could have been an element of the scene where he had to react to something that wasn't there.

Actors are acting in the film, even when they are not speaking. He didn't say it was 95% of his dialogue, he said it was 95% of his scenes.

That's what I was thinking, too. He meant in 95% of his scenes he was speaking OR reacting to something not there.

At first I was thinking that it wouldn't be that hard interacting with Jar-Jar since they had Ahmed Best stand in, but then I remembered that they shot a reference take with Ahmed, and others without him.

I am out of words!:)

yeah, I guess that's true.