One of the most famous — if not THE most famous — voice actors on the planet, James Earl Jones, was a guest on the Live! With Regis and Kelly show recently.

The actor talks about how he got started in the business, and about his new gig playing the Morgan Freeman role in a stage adaptation of Driving Miss Daisy with Vanessa Redgrave, but also talks about his work as the iconic voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy.

Earl Jones touches on how they decided that the man in the suit, David Prowse, didn’t have quite the voice they were looking for, and how at first they were looking at Orson Welles for the job, but ultimately decided that he was just a bit too recognizable. Enter an offer to Earl Jones to do it, and it’s all history from there. He also talks about how chose not to be credited because he felt he didn’t need to be, and how he chose not to take the “points” that eventually made others involved in the movies millionaires thanks to residual payments. He was broke at the time, so he took just $7,000, went and bought groceries, and that was that.

Be sure to click on over to the dark side to see James Earl Jones talking Vader on Regis and Kelly, especially to see him tell Regis that he is his father.