Sorry, But BB-8 ‘Vocal Consultant’ Bill Hader Is Not Into Signing ‘Star Wars’ Merch (Or Anything, Really)

Did you know that Bill Hader is — sort of — in a Star Wars movie On The Force Awakens, the Barry maven and Ben Schwartz are credited as “vocal consultants” for BB-8, everyone’s favorite ball-shaped droid. Those bleeps and boops don’t sound anything like either of them (and there originally was supposed to be dialogue), but if you’re a Star Wars super-geek, then you may know this piece of pretty arcane trivia. But that doesn’t mean Hader will sign a BB-8 doll for you.

On a recent appearance on the podcast Happy Sad Confused, Hader had some bad news for people who want his name on their Star Wars merch. “I do not sign them,” he said. “Autograph people don’t like me. I won’t sign things.”

It’s not just BB-8s he won’t sign. “You know what it was I used to sign stuff, and then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB-8 thing and it was three in the morning,” said Hader. “I was leaving the Inside Out premiere and then we went to an after-party thing and it was super late and this guy kept his kid up all night. [He] was like, ‘Go over there so he’ll sign it so I can sell it online.’

“I was like, ‘That’s f*cked up,'” he added. “So now, I just kind of blanket, like, I’m not signing any of this sh*t.”

What Hader will do — at least on a podcast — is talk about what it was like to voice a droid in a Star Wars movie. “It’s very sweet that J.J. Abrams put my name on it, but I came in and did voice stuff for it that didn’t work,” he said. “Then, he brought me in later and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this.’ It was like a … talk box thing and then I did that. And the reason he hasn’t had me come back is because anybody can do that. It’s like a machine that you can operate.

“I did some voice stuff that just didn’t work, so… I’m not really sure what Ben [Schwartz] did,” he added, “but I just know that was my experience doing it.”

You can watch Hader’s Happy Sad Confused appearance in the video below.