"There's no mystery to it -- I fit the suit," recounts actor Jeremy Bulloch on how he secured the role of Boba Fett, the enigmatic bounty hunter who, despite having less than twenty minutes of screen time, somehow managed not only to capture Han Solo but also the fancy of a fanbase that follows his continuing adventures throughout a series of Star Wars-related comic books and paperbacks.

Jovial and talkative, Bulloch himself is the antithesis of the brooding Fett. His acting career began with a cereal commercial at the age of ten. "There was this toy included in the cereal box, and I desperately wanted one," the actor recalls, his freckled face brightening. "The camera was there, and I had to hit this little mark, and the director was quite brutal. He'd say 'Now take your time Jeremy' and then he'd immediately call 'Action,' and when we cut, he'd yell 'Oh, come on, son! We should've finished this by lunch time!' It was a very long day, and he didn't even give me one of the toys when we were done. Oh well, I suppose you have to have the skin of a rhinoceros to be an actor."

Of course, a tough covering of Mandalorian armor never did any harm either. "The worst part was the jetpack -- it was very heavy," recalls Bulloch. "A lot of it was technical, because I could hardly see out of the mask at all, so I used to count my steps. I worked this out without the helmet. So during rehearsal on The Empire Strikes Back, I was coming down from the carbon-freezing chamber where I was walking behind Darth Vader, and as well as counting, I was looking down, because as my foot was going down, Dave [Prowse]'s cape was just missing it.

"And I was so thrilled to reach the bottom without tripping on his cape that I relaxed a bit and just went crash," he exclaims. "The prongs of the boots had caught on the stairstep, and the weight of the jetpack just brought me down. And then all the ugnaughts came running, and my friend Mike Edmonson, who also played Logray the Ewok, was among them saying 'Are you okay?'" And I was just whispering 'Yes, yes, now go away.' Then the director asked 'Are you okay, Boba?' I replied 'Yes, I'm just fine... well, actually, I do need a bit of help... I can't get up.'"