Hope is a Droid: BD-1 in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

This article contains minor, early-game spoilers

To me, Star Wars has always been a story of how hope endures during the darkest times. In Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, no character epitomizes this more for me than BD-1. In fact, the little droid's hope is so powerful that it isn't just relegated to the game.

At Respawn, there are always BD gifs flying about to lift our spirits. We also shot all of our performance capture cinematics (PCAP) during Covid. Shoots can be long and exhausting, and doubly so when you’re wearing a mask for 12 hours. But for every shoot, we had BD with us.

Gideon Emery plays BD. He's a delightful, mischievous actor who seemed to make it his mission to entertain the cast and crew, both on and off the PCAP stage.

But you might be wondering — why do we have an actor playing BD in the first place? BD's only lines are beeps and boops, right? To the writing team, BD is a main character — and on set you need to have an actor thinking through a character’s motivation in every scene, or else you might miss an opportunity.

On the PCAP stage, Gideon brings BD to life in two important ways. Using a nose whistle, Gideon provides on set beeps and boops, so our other actors can hear BD's reactions live. Our audio engineers go back later in post production, of course, but it’s incredibly useful to be able to haer BD react on set. When we write BD beeps in our scripts, we always provide the general intent of his reaction like this: 

CAL

I don't know, buddy. Something's off.

BD-1

(it’s okay!)

Boop!

Gideon, holding a replica of BD, would follow Cameron, playing Cal, around the set, whistling and providing reactions, some scripted, some not. This gave BD a presence as one of the crew, and an equal among the cast. 

Despite his diminutive stature, BD is one of the emotional cornerstones of Cal's journey. When writing scripts, we always talked through BD's reactions to crucial story beats. But many of BD's most charming, meaningful moments were the result of on set collaboration, and Gideon's keen eye as an actor.

For example, after the disastrous events on Coruscant, it's BD who shows Cal the home movie of the Mantis crew from better times. This spurs Cal and BD-1's journey to Koboh to track down Greez Dritus to get the Latero's help repairing the Mantis.

At Pyloon’s saloon, Greez immediately recognizes that the Jedi's fight against the Empire has taken its toll. Greez wisely suggests that Cal rest in the room he's prepared in the cantina basement. The next morning, Greez counsels Cal against losing himself in the fight.

At first Cal, stubborn, fixated on the Empire, deflects, and instead focuses on the task at hand — recovering the spare part for the Mantis. When we tried the scene in rehearsal, it went really smoothly until the end, when we sensed that we needed a beat to prompt Cal's final lines, which highlight the emotional core of the scene.

Cue Gideon, pitching that BD should hop off Cal's shoulder and force his friend to stop and reflect on Greez's counsel. We gave it a try, and it was just what we — and Cal — needed.

BD hops in front of Cal.

BD-1

(listen)

Boop!

Cal looks down at BD, his loyal companion, standing in the way. And in that moment Cal is finally able to really listen to Greez's counsel because he knows that BD and Greez are family, and sometimes family knows best.

CAL

Greez, I'll think about what you said.