We know that background characters play a vital role in Star Wars. Yet, we may not know how Lucas’s family was cast in some of these roles. Three of Lucas’s children and Lucas himself appeared in the prequel movies. His daughters made seven combined appearances, his son two, and Lucas was on-screen once.
Table of Contents
Lucas’s Two Daughters in the Prequels
According to Wikipedia, three of Lucas’s children appeared in the prequels, along with Lucas. This reference is a good starting point for breaking down two of Lucas’s family appearances in Star Wars.
This article goes into more detail about Amanda Lucas, George Lucas’s daughter, and her roles in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. In the first prequel, Amanda played Diva Funquita, an assistant to a Hutt criminal, and voiced lines for Tey How, a Trade Federation Pilot. In the second movie, Amanda made a brief appearance as a patron named Adnama at the Outlander Club on Coruscant. That’s three appearances for Amanda so far.
The above CBR article also describes Katie Lucas’s roles in the first two films. In the first instance, she played Amee, the childhood friend of Anakin who lived in the slave quarters. Amee may best be remembered for having braces and saying to Anakin about his podracer, “You’ve been working on that thing for years.”
Katie also appeared at the Outlander Club in Attack as the Twi’lek Lunae Minx, complete with “mottled purple skin and brown eyes.” In addition, she also played Senator Chi Eekway Papanoida next to her father in the Opera House scene (see below). That makes three roles for Katie.
And, we can recognize Amanda in one more role as Terr Taneel, the Republic senator who likewise was at the Opera House. In all, we can count four appearances for Amanda and three for Katie for a total of seven so far. Between the two of them, Lucas’s daughters provide interesting support characters to add to the menagerie of Star Wars.
George and Jett Lucas
George Lucas himself shows up in the Revenge of the Sith as Baron Notluwiski Papanoida. We can briefly see the creator of Star Wars in this scene after Anakin runs up the stairs to join Palpatine at the opera. This character also appeared in The Clone Wars series but not with Lucas as the actor.
In Revenge of the Sith, Lucas cast his son Jett as the Jedi Padawan Zett Jukassa. Jukassa valiantly fought off clone troopers before being killed at the Jedi Temple. We can see him here jump into action and take out several before perishing. Previously in Attack, Jett had played Warpac Skamini, a different name for the same Padawan (later merged together).
George and Jett Lucas combined make for three appearances, bringing our total up to ten.
Other Lucas Family Roles
Katie Lucas carried forward her role as Senator Papanoida in The Clone Wars. That is, the animated character was based on her. As this video indicates, three Papanoidas were based on all three of Lucas’s children, with “the eldest sister designed to look like Amanda Lucas,” a middle-child sister who looked like Katie, and a younger son who looked like Jett.
Jett Lucas also worked as a visual effects production assistant for The Mandalorian, Season 1. Katie Lucas went on to write episodes of The Clone Wars, while Amanda Lucas departed from the film world for mixed martial arts.
As for Lucas himself, he was reluctant to take on cameo roles in Star Wars. Lucas’s children convinced him to play this small part in Revenge, where he does not have any lines and his face is concealed with blue makeup. Yet, Lucas’s appearance did come right before Palpatine’s story about Darth Plagueis. And, designers of the Baron Papanoida character in Clone Wars drew on Lucas’s likeness.
Lucas’s Family Members and Star Wars
Three of George Lucas’s children appeared in the prequels and served as models for the animated versions of the characters. Lucas appeared only once but also instilled the look of a continuing support character. In total, Lucas’s family members (including Lucas) had ten appearances to help bring the galaxy to life.