From Puppets to Performance Capture, with Frank Oz and Andy Serkis

Yoda, Miss Piggy, Cookie Monster, King Kong, Gollum, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Adam Conover, astrophysicist Charles Liu, and Bill Nye explore the world of puppeteering and performance capture with Frank Oz and Andy Serkis. Listen you will. NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/from-puppets-to-performance-capture-with-frank-oz-and-andy-serkis/ Photo Credit: muppet.wikia.com [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to the hall of the universe. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And tonight, we're featuring my interview with filmmaker and puppeteer Frank Oz. Now, if you don't know who he is, he's the man behind some of pop culture's most iconic characters. Like Miss Piggy, Cookie Monster, Yoda. And joining us in studio just a little later is actor and motion capture pioneer Andy Serkis. So let's do this.

• 0:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, my co-host tonight, comedian Adam Conover. Adam?

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Hello, everybody. Hi. Thank you for having me.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are creator and host of the TV show "Adam Ruins Everything."

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you're just proud of that?

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, well, we try to, you know, break down common misconceptions, tell people the hidden truth about, you know, everything that they thought they loved. It's just temporal, it ruins it for a second, but then hopefully, we hope that by learning more, you know, you enjoy that at the end of the day.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're the geek that people don't want to bring to something that they're trying to enjoy?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I'm the jerk at the cocktail party who just read an article about that.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. And also joining me, friend and colleague astrophysicist Charles Liu.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The City University of New York, Staten Island. You are our resident geek spurt. Geeks, did we just invent that word?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You are a fountain of knowledge of all things pop culture, and that's why we have you on this show. So, and we're featuring my interview tonight with puppeteer Frank Oz. Many people probably know the characters he's created better than they know him, if they know him at all. So, I just had to ask him about this sort of semi-anonymity that he might either enjoy or resent. Let's find out. So Frank, how many people know?

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who you are, because when I, when I looked at your, your resume, it was like, this guy's everything I ever cared about in life, from childhood up through adulthood.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  You know, that, that's, that's a real joy for me because I'm a private person and I'm not looking for stuff and so I, I can walk down the street.

• 2:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you just said you're a private person in front of three cameras and national television. Just in case you weren't thinking this through.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I, in past tense, I was a private person.

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  But I, I, I love the fact that I can just, I have friends, celebrity friends who can't go outside. I love going outside on my bike in the city and I love just buy my beans and do my laundry and, you know, all the, all the mundane things in life I like to do. The people that buy yachts and stuff like that, I hate that stuff. I love the normal stuff and I love the fact that nobody recognized me.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I think being a normal guy manifests in your work because your, your stuff touches normal people in, in fundamental ways.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Actually, okay, I'll get serious for a second, but that's kind of, that's one of the reasons why I do it. Also to be, to stay a part of the human race, but the other reason is if you get in too many limousines, if you get, uh, too many assistants to help you, then you totally lose touch of the people you want to touch.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, you knew who Frank, who Frank Oz was?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Knew who Frank Oz was, I did.

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was also Bert of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, as well as Grover and Cookie Monster. And he performed Miss Piggy for nearly thirty years on the Muppets. So, so when did you first know who he was?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I would just hear his name in connection with the, you know, with these characters.

• 3:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hear the name. Yeah, I, I saw his name at the end of two movies. And I realized in each of those movies, he played exactly the same character, essentially the same character.

• 4:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was in Trading Places and in the Blues Brothers movie.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Wait, who was? I don't know. Who was he in those movies?

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was at the boundary between people who were free and people who were in jail or in prison. So when the Blues Brothers got out of prison, he's there giving them back their supplies.

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Including, I think, a used condom was one of the... Uh, that's what they were arrested with. And in Trading Places, uh, he was there, he told Winthrop to, uh, you know, take off his clothes and give up his stuff. So this was like the same role, and it's like Frank Oz at the end. A small role, but it was like, that's the same guy who's all these voices. And that's when, that's when it hit me.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  It's so funny, that name is so funny because it really, he really is, he really is the guy pulling the, it's, it works too well. It's almost too on the nose. If someone put, pitched that in a writer's room, how about the guy who's pulling the strings is literally named Oz?

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, no, it's crazy, scary.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Come on!

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so, you might know that the legendary puppeteer Jim Henson, who goes back to 1955, creating The Muppets, that Frank Oz is like early in that universe, right? And out of that, you get, eventually Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy and Beaker. That was, that was, that was one, there was a scientist, yeah, yeah. And, uh, Fozzie Bear, I think is, did I say that right, Charles?

• 5:24Charles Liu?

  Yes, Fozzie. I think Fozzie must be a F-Oz-E.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, Frank Oz-E.

• 5:30Charles Liu?

  Do you think Fozzie was named after Frank himself as Fozzie?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  That's a really good theory. I find that very believable.

• 5:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. I call it a hypothesis. There's a theory of evolution, and then Charles' hypothesis.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  A hypothesis, yes. A hypothesis.

• 5:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, in the Museum of Natural History, it's a hypothesis, yes. So I had to ask Frank just how he got involved early on in this pop culture phenomenon. So let's check it out. Your history with The Muppets, I mean, it's, you, you go back basically to the beginning, right? Is that right? Where? Jim and Jane started it in Washington DC. Jim, Jim Henson, not all of them. Jim, yeah, let me tell Jim. Jim, excuse me, okay. Uh, Jim Henson, yes.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Jim, well, I worked with, I, my friend.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  You're, geez, you're, you're tough.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, you're just...

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Um, uh, I'm scared to say his name now.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jim, I'll say it for you. Jim Henson.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  Jim Henson and Jane started in Washington DC in a local show, uh, local show for eight years. They moved to New York in 1963 and I was 19 years old and that's when I joined them.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when were the Muppets picked up by Sesame Street?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  About 1969, 68, something like that.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you were there before or after that?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, before.

• 6:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before that?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  And after.

• 6:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this is, this is puppeteering, but a different kind of puppet than we think of, you know, the marionette or...

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I, I started...

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, somebody had to, was that Jim?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  That was totally Jim. Totally Jim.

• 6:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because who would have thought that would have worked with like a stick hand?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Well, here's, here's the thing, you know, before Jim, there was a proscenium with puppets. And the TV...

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A little curtain and you sit in front of it?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  And the TV shot that. Well, he took away the proscenium and made the TV screen the proscenium. Okay? That's one thing he did. Then, he worked with a tight shot. And when you work with a tight shot, that forces you to do it pretty succinct, you know, and all that. Usually, most puppets just kind of do that stuff. So, but he, and he also had characters that were not traditional. Like, you know, there's the usual dragon and there's a princess and all that stuff. He just made characters, period. So, he just blew everything apart. He was, uh, he was amazing.

• 7:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we lost Jim Henson in 1990, uh, but of course, he left behind his legacy that Frank Oz kept going. So, Charles, puppeteering, what do you know about it? Just, just...

• 7:58Charles Liu?

  Puppeteering has been going on for at least 4,000 years. Ancient Egyptians did it. Herodotus spoke of it in the 5th century B.C. for the ancient Greeks.

• 8:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this is puppets?

• 8:07Charles Liu?

  Yeah, puppets specifically. Uh, finger puppets, hand puppets, glove puppets.

• 8:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All, and, and other around the world?

• 8:13Charles Liu?

  Yeah, marionettes, uh, little dolls. Alls that could move, then followed by all the kinds of developments up to today, including the very complicated handspring puppets you can see, where there's a person standing next to them and they show very lifelike behaviors of animals and other creatures.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such as the kind of thing employed in The Lion King?

• 8:34Charles Liu?

  Yes, right.

• 8:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, there are many different sort of parts that capture an exact, or at least the spirit of the animal that they are trying to show.

• 8:42Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 8:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though you know it's not the real animal, the movement evokes it.

• 8:46Charles Liu?

  It is so good that you are able to appreciate that puppet for its own life and existence without having to think about the puppeteer.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, he's had decades to hone it from The Muppets and Sesame Street, and it leads me to wonder whether is there any place else it can go next?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, we thought maybe, here, look, we put together.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yes, okay. We got one for everybody. Oh, I like that. I got the animal puppet.

• 9:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How, what? How do you do this? What do I do?

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I think you put your hand in here. This is, this is pretty close to what my hair looks like.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:32Charles Liu?

  Oh, very good, very good, very good, very good.

• 9:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you, thank you.

• 9:37Charles Liu?

  Very good.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how, how, how, how much of an impact on the landscape of education do you think Sesame Street had?

• 9:46Charles Liu?

  Well, well, I, when I was a child, watched Sesame Street, and I was like, what?

• 9:56Charles Liu?

  Eventually, though, I realized that the puppets themselves were being controlled by people. And that was actually quite a realization for me in education.

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  How are you so good at that? Have you been practicing?

• 10:11Charles Liu?

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was just baffled.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  What? How are you so good at that?

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so, so you're younger than I think both, you're younger than I think both me and Charles.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  I certainly hope so.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, did you learn how to count with the Count on Sesame Street?

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely, absolutely, I did. Yes, absolutely, I mean, as a kid, you're, it's interesting how much children relate to puppets, because so much of kids' television is puppets, puppets, puppets, puppets everywhere.

• 10:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how about? I'll help you there.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Neil.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's not just the math. It's not just the math. Right. But there's also life lessons. From Big Bird, and it was a happy character. And it was bilingual as well. Eventually. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Right, right. But there's also Oscar the Grouch.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I kept thinking, as a kid, I'm happier than this character. This character has, like, issues. So...

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Well, he doesn't live in the best situation.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, he's not. No, he does not.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  It teaches you to have empathy for folks who have it rougher than you, I think.

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Adam, who's your favorite character?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Oh, on Sesame Street?

• 11:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Overall, oh, oh my, I have to, I have to, I have to think about that.

• 11:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to think about.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  I do, oh, yeah. I mean, I always liked, I always liked, uh, Telly Monster. You got any Telly fans? Telly fans? Got any Telly fans? Cause he really, cause he had, he had, he went through some real problems, man. He had...

• 11:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Issues.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  He was anxious. That's more relatable to me.

• 11:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Charles, how about you?

• 11:55Charles Liu?

  Um, hang on a sec. Um, okay.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Who does show up?

• 12:00Charles Liu?

  Um, I would have to say Grover. Yes, Grover.

• 12:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grover?

• 12:07Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Well, I asked Frank Oz if he had a favorite character that he performed on Sesame Street. So, check it out.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  You know, one has to love one's characters or else you'll never do a good job. So, I love every character I do for some unknown reason. Even Piggy, who is neurotic and animal and all those characters, and, you know, and Cookie Monster.

• 12:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You invested in their personality profile?

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely. But you never do it alone. One doesn't work in a vacuum. I did it with the writers, with the fellow performers, and with Jim. You know, just cause I'm sitting here, it should also be a writer here, Jim here, and the other performers here. Because one doesn't work that alone. You have to create a character with other people. But I guess to answer would be the, the, the, the character that is... Easiest for me is more organic is Grover.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Grover?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Most like me, yeah.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you did Miss Piggy?

• 13:01Speaker 02

  I did.

• 13:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, so, did anyone have concern for you psychologically? Given how many different personalities manifested in these fictional monsters?

• 13:12Speaker 02

  It's not just me, but it's also the other performers who do so many other characters. But we're lucky, we work our problems out and you have to see it.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So, so we're the victims of these social, these personality disorders?

• 13:28Speaker 02

  We get paid for therapy, you don't get paid to watch it at all, no.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up, I asked puppeteer Frank Oz about his most iconic character of them all. Jedi Master Yoda. When StarTalk returns.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're fixing my interview with puppeteer Frank Oz. And he is, we think, best known as the voice of Yoda from Star Wars. Check it out.

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remembered seeing Star Wars in real time, I mean, you know, first run in real time. And there's this Yoda there, and that's a weird kind of character, right? I kept thinking, ah, no one will ever remember that character. This is Yoda. It's nice, what, it's just weird and kind of hairy and you don't want to pet it and... You know, I mean, if you can have a, a character that doesn't exist, make it something you might want to cuddle with. So I was sure, no- nothing would come of Yoda. And here's Yoda the wise...

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Who's to say?

• 14:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So who gave you that call?

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Um, actually, George, uh...

• 14:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  George, George.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  George.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  And the Pope.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  George Lucas, through his producer, asked Jim, we were doing the Muppet Movie in Los Angeles. Jim was obviously too busy and knew, he couldn't quite do that. He has incredible talents, but this one, he couldn't quite handle as much as I could, he felt. And that's how it happened, it was through support of Jim. And then, then I started doing it.

• 15:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you invented the voice?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did anyone tell you, "Speak this way"? It's like, how could anyone possibly tell you to speak that way? Because no one ever spoke that way before.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  You know why he says that, why he talks that way?

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I have no idea.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  There's always a reason for something.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I come to learn that, as a scientist, yeah?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  You know, my view of it is, first of all, it was Larry and George who wrote it. And I said, "Hey, you know, this is nice, can I..." It was only, they use it halfway, and I said, "Can I do it all the time"? They said, "Yeah." The way I view it is, Yoda is...

• 15:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is where like adjectives and nouns are switched in places.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  I'm not smart enough to know what an adjective or a noun is.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Yeah, the sentence is fully understandable, but clearly from another syntax, yeah?

• 16:04Speaker 02

  It's because that's the way the original Jedi spoke. It was a very formal and elegant language. He is now 700, 800 years old at that time. And, not unlike the Native Americans trying to keep their language alive, he also is trying to keep the formal Jedi language alive while these surf kids are talking their language. And so, he feels a tremendous responsibility to talk that way, even though nobody else talks that way.

• 16:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though he could probably speak the way everyone else speaks.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Right, but he is, he has the integrity, and he feels the responsibility.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cultural imperative.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's what I believe.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you don't have to believe it because you did it, so therefore it is.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  And it gives him dignity and an integrity that's important to his gravitas.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Adam, why is Yoda so beloved?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I think first of all, the performance that Frank gives is incredible. And it's got, you know, because he's right there actually puppeting the character. You know, there's a real, you know, humanity to the performance. You really connect with it. And then, you know, he starts out as this small little creature living in the bog, you know? And he turns out to be this wise, you know, incredibly powerful teacher. That contrast is so interesting and funny and stays with you.

• 17:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, where do you come at?

• 17:29Charles Liu?

  I think we all want to be Yoda. We all somehow feel we are inadequate, perhaps a little ugly, a little short. But within us, we have the power to move mountains with just our mind.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Or we want a Yoda in our lives, you know? Someone where you're at your, you know, Luke's at his worst period. He's crash landed into this planet, you know? He's weak, he can't do anything. And then there's this guy who says to him like, "No, you contain, you know, the seeds of power and greatness, and let me help you bring it out."

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, give me some of the backstory on Yoda.

• 17:58Charles Liu?

  Okay, well, George Lucas made sure that the backstory stayed very mysterious overall. But we do know that he spent his last years of his life in exile on Dagobah, which was the swampy planet, probably his planet of origin.

• 18:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What species is he?

• 18:14Charles Liu?

  We don't know. It's something weird in between.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  They've never specified.

• 18:17Charles Liu?

  No, the idea is that he might be the last of his kind.

• 18:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  George Lucas once joked that he's the illegitimate child of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that kind of adds up, actually. If you picture it, it does kind of add up.

• 18:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, Yoda is like the master of the force.

• 18:37Charles Liu?

  Yes. A physicist's force is a push or a pull, and it's calculable by using mass times acceleration. The force that was described in the Star Wars movies is more like some sort of vague thing that knits the universe together and flows all around us. It's more like an energy rather than a force, but it is tappable by certain people with enough training to allow you to manipulate space and time as if you had an unlimited force generator inside your pocket.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would be what an actual force would actually do?

• 19:09Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 19:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so there's some overlap between the two?

• 19:11Charles Liu?

  Right.

• 19:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, there's one more thing about Yoda that I had to get off my chest with the voice of Yoda himself, Frank Oz. Let's check it out.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now can I give you my biggest gripe about Yoda?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 19:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like unforgivable?

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there's Yoda, old and wise, walking around with a cane.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then, which episode was it where he pulls out the lightsaber and does triple Kung-Fu flips through the air? The dude was walking around with a cane for the whole, all the... He ca... He's old, tired, in a cane.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  You can't take this so personally.

• 19:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I'm just saying, you don't walk around with a cane.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Okay, settle down.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I gotta get this... I gotta release this. He's in a cane, and then it's time to fight. He's flipping, doing

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Matrix-like moves off the walls.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Right, right, you okay?

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then he's done, and then he goes back to the cane.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  You finished?

• 20:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 20:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I don't know if I have room for that.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Okay, fair enough. Well, that was... What happened was George had a story he had to tell. And I was doing a puppet, and in the story, he had a fight. So he had a choice. Do I stay as the puppet and not tell the story he wants to tell? Or do I change the puppet and make it the CGI and to jump around? Now, one could, one could explain it by saying, not unlike a mother can lift a car off a child, he, in this extreme case, uses that adrenaline to fight, and then he gets back as Kane, being an old man. One can use that. I'm not saying I'm using it. I'm saying that's the only explanation... That's the only explanation I can think of.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  I'm not saying it is right, I'm just saying that's an explanation.

• 21:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right, let's just...

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Are you okay?

• 21:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give you a pass on that one.

• 21:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles, are you buying that explanation?

• 21:14Charles Liu?

  No.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Superhuman adrenaline strength.

• 21:16Charles Liu?

  No, no, no.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hysterical strength.

• 21:18Charles Liu?

  Although it is true that adrenaline running can increase your strength by several times, it's not gonna turn someone who can't walk into someone who can do that with a lightsaber. Okay. It is much more likely that the cane was just an affectation. Something that he used to show how old he was and keep all his people off guard. There is also the idea where, say, Donald Blake, who became Thor, he walked with a limp until he smacked the cane on the ground, and then he became Thor and he could fly around and call it down thunderbolts, right? Jane Foster, who played Thor more recently, in the more recent comic books, has cancer and actually is physically decrepit and in deep trouble until she strikes the mallet down and then becomes Thor.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm still not, I'm still not buying it. Adam, you got a better explanation for me?

• 22:06Speaker 01

  I like the affectation explanation, but I have an alternative explanation. I am not an astrophysicist, unlike the two of you, but perhaps because Yoda is so tiny, all of the, he is more dense with force power that explodes out of him. Does that, does that track for you guys? Do you guys? I don't like his expression. I don't like his expression.

• 22:28Charles Liu?

  I think it's nice. I don't know about you.

• 22:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dense with force power.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  You know, I have a bachelor's degree, so I think I know what I'm talking about.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's dense with force power. There's a sentence for it.

• 22:39Charles Liu?

  He should go on the TV show So You Think You Can Force.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Well, you have, you have a long history of ruining movies like this for people, don't you?

• 22:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I, yes, you do. No, I just offer, no, no. Every time a movie comes out, man, no. I'm just helping people, appreciate. I just, so one time I just, you know, put up some tweets about Star Wars, and I thought I was helping people, but no, they didn't think I was helping them. And like, Time Magazine came out, do we have that headline? Yeah, look at that. Is it trying to completely ruin Star Wars? Then no!

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Well, we're kindred spirits then. That's what I ruin things, you ruin things.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Oh, that is a thing.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We would think with the noble goal of getting people closer to what is real.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Except that I, well, you know, we have a specific tweet up. Don't we have an image of it?

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, you have my, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, all right.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Will you read this aloud in the original?

• 23:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If Star Wars: The Force Awakens, BB8, a smooth-rolling metal spherical ball would have skidded uncontrollably on sand.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Now, Neil-

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is for sure.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Let me ask you.

• 23:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just trying to keep it a hundred.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  That is your problem with Star Wars is that the ball is slippery. That's the only critique you have.

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I had other issues I put up with. There's about a dozen of them.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I didn't just stop there.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  But that was a practical effect, though. BB8 was a real, one of my favorite things about the movie.

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But half the movie was on sand. The thing couldn't have done anything.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  But they literally built the prop. BB8 was a real prop that they had rolling around. It was a physical object.

• 24:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it was.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  So it really did it, unless that particular scene was CGI.

• 24:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Park that sand, it's gonna be concrete half an inch below it. Okay, you can do that.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  I see, I see.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Try driving on sand with treaded tires. Just try it. Okay?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Well, maybe he's, maybe he's got magnets. Maybe he's got magnets.

• 24:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, coming up, actor and Hollywood motion capture pioneer Andy Serkis joins us when StarTalk returns.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. We're featuring my interview with puppeteer and filmmaker Frank Oz. And I asked him his opinion about the transition from puppets, like his original Yoda, to the computer-animated characters we see in movies today. Check it out.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  CG, it all depends on the use of it, right? If it enhances the story invisibly, it's great. If it shows off, then all we know, it's all just money and time. So it depends on the manner which it's used, you know. I mean, I...

• 25:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't lament the puppeteering trade aspect of it?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  I don't lament anything...

• 25:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The craft?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  No, I'm not a big puppet-craft guy.

• 25:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's really what I was asking.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  I'm a performer, basically, and I've been a director. I mean, when I directed Little Shop of Horrors, everything in that movie was real. Except there were two CG shots at that time, they didn't call them CG. And those shots were just a subway going by and something else. The plant itself was all live, with about up to thirty people working it. These days, you couldn't afford that. You have no choice but to go CG on something. Nobody could possibly shoot that now. So therefore, in that situation, CG may be appropriate if you have to have a talking plant that weighs a ton, right? And it's the manner which you do it. If it's invisible, I'm all for it, and supports the story.

• 26:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's clear that some movies today didn't get the invisible memo.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  No, I get so tired, I mean, I personally get tired of swirling fire and things like that that are CG. I just, you know, if it helps me to be compelled and touched by the story, and it's invisible, I'm all for it.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. Well, joining me now to discuss computer technology in film is actor and performance capture pioneer Andy Serkis. Andy, welcome to StartTalk.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Thank you, thanks very much.

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me, what is performance capture acting?

• 27:00Speaker 04

  It's this incredible 21st century tool for enabling an actor to transport or transform into any avatar. So, you know, it's another way of putting it for the layperson would be, instead of putting on a costume and makeup and going on set and being directed by the director and working with other actors, you are going on set, working with the director and other actors, and then having digital makeup applied to your performance.

• 27:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. Now, you are the undisputed king of this art form.

• 27:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In part because in fact you were King Kong in two thousand in the two thousand and five remake, right?

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 27:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no one, people didn't draw that on top of you. You were King Kong.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think that's the thing that people misunderstand between, you know, and the difference between animation is, um, for instance, an actor would go into a voice booth and do two hours of recording and then a whole team of animators would spend, you know, months and months and months, each individually, working on a shot and they become the actor.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is why your body still matters.

• 27:57Speaker 04

  So, so the difference between that and performance capture is that you are the author of the role from page one to one hundred and twenty of the script. You're on set every day, working with the director in exactly the same way as you would as, as in a live action performance.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you were also Caesar, the lead chimpanzee in the revival of the Planet of the Apes franchise. And I thought maybe, okay, he's only gonna be playing, he's gonna only gonna be doing apes. That's who, let me typecast him as an ape. He's the ape guy. But no, you end up playing like creepy Gollum in Lord of the Rings. And you were like the supreme leader Snoke in the latest Star Wars films. So we will not typecast you as an ape.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 28:39Charles Liu?

  Just as an evil villain of the overlord of the force.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  But those ape, those ape roles are incredible, especially because you were talking about voice, voice actors. So many, so much of the time when people are working digitally, it's just the voice. The first half of the first ape movie, you don't even speak. And you convey so much emotion with the, it's one of my favorite performances I've ever seen.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I mean, that's the great thing. I mean, the great, look, here's, here's a case in point. Over the course of three movies, I get to play a character which, you know, from birth all the way through his entire life. Not only that, it's not a human being, it's an ape. Not only that, he's evolving. So you get to see a trans, this is what the technology can do, you know. You, you, it allows you to, you, you see the evolution of Caesar into this ape that is a chimpanzee at the beginning, but is almost human-like towards the end.

• 29:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can see a future category in the Academy Awards, best leading ape. Because that's what you were. So, how do you prepare to be an ape? I mean, humans are a branch of apes, but it's not the kind of ape you're portraying. So, do you go around dragging your knuckles for a few weeks?

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Well, look.

• 29:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To get in the part? You know, how do you do this?

• 29:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, the great, the great thing is, um, it's all acting. It's about, it's about acting. And when, when you're creating a character, you are building the psychology of the role, the emotional drive of the role, the physicality. It's all, you know, a backstory, you imagine who this character is, so.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and you gotta connect with people.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Absolutely. But, but, so you start off by, of course, if you're playing an ape, then you, you, you observe apes. And I spent a lot of time observing apes, both for King Kong and for, you know, I went to Rwanda and studied mountain gorillas. I looked at gorillas in captivity, observed the difference between the two. But, one thing that, with Caesar was, he's, he is not just an ape. This is an ape that is, has a drug that's coursing through his veins, which, which, uh, which enables him to rapidly evolve. And so, it's like, well, it's about character ultimately. So, so the, the, the learning how to be an ape is like 1% of the, of the journey of building the character. It's, it's, who is this guy? And the way I chose to play Caesar was that he was an outsider, that he is, almost like, I approached him like he was a human in an ape's skin, until there's a certain part

• 30:46Speaker 04

  in the story, he's brought up with human beings, so he reflects human behavior.

• 30:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  It's then when he's thrown into an ape sanctuary at his teenage years, that he begins to see himself for what he is, and, and becomes a revolutionary leader and leads his apes to freedom.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, it's not a stretch to imagine a human playing an ape? Because they're our closest relatives. But, if I'm imagining the future of this craft, this art, uh, how might one go about playing animals that don't have four limbs? Like insects or something? Or a lizard, it's got four limbs, but it's not, the limbs are not proportioned the way apes are.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Sure, well, that, that, that, that happens, uh, using a process called retargeting. So, so for instance, I'm working on a production of Animal, of, not Animal Farm, that's To Come, actually, uh, but, um, Jungle Book. And we have great actors playing all, all the characters, all the animals of the jungle. We've got Christian Bale playing Bagheera, we've got Cate Blanchett playing a snake, we have Benedict Cumberbatch playing Shere Khan, the tiger, and.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We think he can play any. Anything he wants.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  He can play it.

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One day they'll say, could you please play yourself? And he'll say, I have no idea what that is.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  But there are various different ways of retargeting the actor's performance so that they are literally are driving the character. So, for instance, Kate Blanchett, we designed the snake and digitally attached the snake to the back of her head. So by moving her head like this, the ripples went through the entire body of the snake, and that's how it's puppeteered. So it's a digital form of puppeteering. So there are, you know, really interesting ways. And of course, you're capturing all the facial expressions using it.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we've got a picture of you playing Caesar, and we get to compare one right next to another. Look at that. So are the dots on your face?

• 32:25Speaker 04

  That's me on the right-hand side.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the dots, tell me about the dots on your face?

• 32:30Speaker 04

  So the dots are assigned to muscle, you know, muscles in your face, picked up by this boom that's in front is a head-mounted camera, which picks up all very subtle information of every single expression you're making. And it also tracks your eye movements and so on. So the animators then take that information. It's the information that goes through a computer, but it's then taken by the animators, and they have to retarget it onto the face of the camera.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because there's a hundred computer engineers between the left picture and the right picture.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, there are CG artists and also animators too. So it's the skill of honoring the actor's performance is what they do. So they are duty-bound to take all of the emotion that is performed by the actor on the day on set and translate it by texture, by fur, by literally retargeting that performance. And a shot like that will take maybe 120 iterations before it actually nails the performance.

• 33:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does what it's gotta do.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, being performed by the actor.

• 33:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Adam, is there a role for CGI in comedy?

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, CGI, you know, TV comedy is much lower budgets than movies, right? But it's starting to get so available and accessible, we are able to use CGI. Yeah, I didn't want to say cheap, but it's cheap.

• 33:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Inexpensive.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. True TV is inexpensive, it's not cheap. We are able to use it on our show to punch jokes or to make moments work better. Or now if, you know, I flub a line or if I don't sell a joke, we can make it work on the show with VFX and make it work in post. Like, watch, we've, you know, we could just like add an explosion right here. Like, watch, let's add an explosion. See, that didn't work for anyone at home, but on TV it's hilarious.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, this is still, there's still, there's nothing here right now.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, for you folks, that was nothing, but they'll, you know, they'll love it at home.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so, so Charles, can you think of roles of CGI in education?

• 34:26Charles Liu?

  Absolutely. Right now NASA is already working on opportunities to use CGI to show people going into the International Space Station, walking around, seeing things happening, as if you were there. Now, I'm just hoping that-

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But can you also like turn knobs and things? So you are, you are what it makes you think you are-

• 34:47Charles Liu?

  That's right.

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In situ.

• 34:49Charles Liu?

  That's right. Okay. And I'm waiting for astronauts to put on this capture technology so that they can look like apes in space. That would be interesting.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't have to send real chimps up anymore.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Astronauts with a motion capture-

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go. All right, so Andy, Frank Oz noted that the CGI needs to enhance the storytelling and not become the storytelling. I assume you agree with that.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  I mean, honestly, you, they should be invisible. They should be totally invisible. I mean, that's the great thing. I mean, most people think when they watch the Apes movies that it's like, they're not quite sure because it's so believable. They're not entirely sure how it's done, but they are totally transported into that world.

• 35:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I remember in the first three minutes, I'm saying, gee, I wonder how they did this? And then in the next three minutes, it was like, I'm totally in this and I don't care.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Right, exactly.

• 35:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, more on the art and science of character creation when StarTalk returns.

• 35:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the American Museum of Natural History. We're featuring my interview with puppeteer Frank Oz. And I asked him how he creates characters, both as a performer and as a director. Let's check it out.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  We would always play around. It was always about play, just like you. It's about play. And that's how to get the best work is just to play. And then we will say, "Okay, let's play around with this, like improv this, because the script doesn't quite work there." And then they'll say, "You know what? That script works. You should do that word for word. But how about this over here?" And we would just play until it cooked.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even though we all liked polished, finished product, what I think we like even more is behind the scenes.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Particularly of a product we love. You want to know as much as you can about the creative process.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  I also think it has to do with imperfection. I think we like imperfection and not perfection. I think the problem with technology, in my opinion, sometimes is it's used for perfection. And we're not perfect, and so we can't relate to it. So we like to relate to imperfection, and that's backstage, too.

• 37:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's where you get the fits and starts.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  That's where you get the humanity. We're all flawed. And every director should be on camera. And they'll have real empathy for an actor, and they won't treat the actors badly.

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or taking them for granted for what they're trying to invest.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And they're precious, vulnerable people. And when you're on, well, you're on camera all the time. You know. I mean, you give yourself. You're naked.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're bare-assed.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 37:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Andy, do you feel bare-assed when you're acting? Just all vulnerable?

• 37:36Speaker 04

  I always feel bare-assed in a Lycra suit.

• 37:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, to a point that Frank was mentioning, how important is the sort of play in acting?

• 37:49Speaker 04

  Well, it's all about imagination. I mean, that's the thing. We all do, whether we're on stage and we're acting in front of, creating a fourth wall, whether we're pretending to be apes in motion capture suits, whether we are pretending to be kings or queens dressed with a crown and a robe. It is play. It's all about imagination.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  But the thing is, it has to be grounded in emotional truth. And so what you're doing as an actor is you're always finding a relationship between you and the character, regardless of how extreme it might be. You know, playing King Kong, playing Gollum, you know, these are the fantasy creatures, but they don't just exist out there. You have, because you're embodying them, you're using a huge part of your you as a person.

• 38:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many people get to say, "Playing King Kong and Gollum"? That sentence isn't utterable by anyone else who ever lived. I just wanna, I just wanna bask in that sentence, just for a moment, okay? So, you've been in front of the camera, behind the camera, actor, director, and you're a pioneer in this medium. Can you think of what the future of this medium will bring?

• 38:58Speaker 04

  The great thing about performance capture is, you know, it's now used in big-budget movies, but, you know, it's also used in television, it's used in video games, it's gonna be used more in virtual reality and in augmented reality.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're augmented reality.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  You know, so I think, you know, we all want a shared experience. We all crave the shared experience, even though, you know, we all binge-watch on our iPhones and our computers. I still think that the human, that human nature desires the shared experience.

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's gonna, what's gonna lead, is it, you're an actor and you say, "I wanna portray this in the future, engineers help me do this." Or will the engineers invent something new? And then you'll say, "Oh, I know how I can now use that in my future project."

• 39:37Speaker 04

  It's a combination of things. It is a marriage, but it's got to be creatively led. I mean, projects never happen. I mean, films never come about. Toy Story would never have happened had it not been for a script and a story and great characters. And then it's like, how do we make this happen?

• 39:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you agree with Frank that the behind-the-scenes can help someone appreciate what the product will be?

• 39:56Speaker 04

  I think, that's a really good question, actually. Well, certainly, it's helped explain the process, the acting process of performance capture to the world. Otherwise, you know, it really would be a mystery to a lot of people.

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Charles, do you think, if you see how something is done, does that subtract from the magic of it?

• 40:14Charles Liu?

  If you see it after, then it doesn't.

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, after.

• 40:17Charles Liu?

  It hasn't.

• 40:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, OK.

• 40:17Charles Liu?

  If you see it before, it might subtract. But this is something that's very true, the imperfection of performance. Some studies have been done to try to figure out why some songs cause you to cry, like tear-jerking songs, and why some don't. And the answer lies in the imperfection. If you hear a person's voice break or go a little bit off because it seems more emotional, you are more likely to cry.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  To pick up on the imperfection thing, just if I may, I think that's the thing about performance capture is because you're seeing actor decisions, because you see maybe someone, you know, the physicality is so, the capture is so, the fidelity of it is so truthful. If you see an actor trip or stumble or, you know, do something that they're feeling in the moment, like an animator would never think to do that.

• 41:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, Andy, before we let you go, what should we look for? Where are you going to take us?

• 41:05Speaker 04

  Well, I really do hope that we are on the verge of creating really engaging storytelling. And again, it's all about immersion and emotional connection.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Andy, thank you for joining us tonight on StarTalk. Andy Serkis!

• 41:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Coming up next, my good buddy, Bill Nye the Science Guy, will share his thoughts on the art and science of character creation when StarTalk returns.

• 41:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk from the Rose Center for Earth and Space, right here in New York City. And we've been talking about the art and science of character creation. And right now, I've got a dispatch on this topic from my friend, good buddy, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Check it out.

• 42:00Bill Nye?

  Hey, Neil. I'm at the Jim Henson Exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, saying hi to some of my old friends, like Kermit the Frog. Hi, Kermit. Hello, Bill. Since ancient times, people have used dolls and puppets to tell human stories. The appeal of these pint-sized personas runs deep. I mean, how many of you have played with dollhouses? How many of you talked to the miniature figures on your toy train layout?

• 42:34Bill Nye?

  We love these little creatures telling human stories. It's how we learn. Frank Oz's fabulous fictional characters taught many of us the alphabet and how to be nice to each other. And that fear is the path to the dark side. But for the performers behind the curtain or below the frame, it's how we inform, inspire, or make you laugh. That's art.

• 43:03Bill Nye?

  But the appeal of the miniature worlds that these characters inhabit runs deep to our ancestral past. And that's science. Back to you, Neil.

• 43:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My out.

• 43:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Charles, Adam, in what ways have like puppets touched your life just growing up?

• 43:25Charles Liu?

  I really enjoyed puppets when I was a kid. We played with them, but really I enjoy even more watching true quality puppeteers make amazing things happen with these simple constructions. It's really quite amazing.

• 43:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But up to what level? At some point, you just gotta say, no, we're grownups now.

• 43:40Charles Liu?

  No, any level, any level. I use it in graduate classes.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 43:44Charles Liu?

  Yes, black holes, you know?

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ohm.

• 43:46Charles Liu?

  That kind of thing. Yeah. It works really well with kids, but even graduate students appreciate it too.

• 43:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You...

• 43:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You...

• 43:55Charles Liu?

  Yes.

• 43:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Graduate classes.

• 43:56Charles Liu?

  Oh, yeah. Especially magnetohydrodynamics. Oh, yeah.

• 44:02Charles Liu?

  No, puppets, any kind of three-dimensional manipulative activity is fundamentally something that adds to the educational experience. I totally use them whenever I get the chance. And I'm always happy to promote the use of puppets and other kinds of manipulative things in education. Whatever it takes. When you give people that visual, that helps them, that helps them remember. And the three dimensionality of it.

• 44:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Three dimensional and a voice character, why not?

• 44:27Charles Liu?

  That's right. Since ancient times, puppetry has been a way where people have used science and technology to convey stories and bring us beyond what is just real. And that's just extended forward to the Muppets of Frank Oz, to Yoda, and now CGI. It's just another tool that science and technology can bring to the table when transporting us somewhere beyond our regular daily lives.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's beautiful. Because in this final clip with Frank? I asked him about a related, very curious phenomenon in his craft. I asked him, "Check it out." You must know this, but I have to share it to you just as a firsthand experience. I've had a couple of experiences in one-on-one conversations with Muppets. And even though I see the Muppeteer just standing there, either just behind a barrier, or maybe not behind a barrier at all, they're just standing there. I'm talking to the Muppet. And the human being just dissolves away. And I'm saying that as an adult.

• 45:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is that? Why do we all just play along with that? And can smile and joke, and we will say, "I met Miss Piggy today." We're not gonna say, "I met the puppeteer of Miss Piggy." We, full-grown, mature adults, and especially kids, will say, "We met the monster, the character." What is that? There's gotta be something psychological going on in there.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, using Yoda or any characters. You know, if somebody said to me, "Jeez, you did a great job with that." I lost. Immediately, I lost. My job is not to do a good job. My job is not to do a great job. My job is to have it transcend. It should be transcendent. So that which I'm working transcends that which it is.

• 46:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you don't want someone to say, "You did a good job at what you did."

• 46:27Speaker 02

  That'd be the worst thing in the world.

• 46:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want someone to say...

• 46:29Speaker 02

  No, I don't want somebody to say. I want someone to believe.

• 46:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought deeply about that last clip, and I realized there's something in my life that resonates with that. He doesn't want you to know that he's even in that equation. He just wants you to believe what he has created. And that should be your takeaway from what he has created for you. And I, as an educator, when I try to bring the universe down to earth for whoever will listen, I don't ever want the result of that to be you in some other situation saying, "This is true because Tyson said so."

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If that is your answer to someone's comment, I have failed as an educator.

• 47:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My task is to empower you to think for yourself. So that you will walk away and I am not in the equation at all. You don't even remember that I shared that information with you. Because that information became a part of you. And once you walk away from that conversation,

• 47:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  you're in charge of your information. And it doesn't reference anything else in the world. And that is the power of knowledge, the power of insight, and ultimately, the source of all wisdom.

• 48:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that is a cosmic perspective.

• 48:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. You've been watching StarTalk.

• 48:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charles Liu.

• 48:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Adam Conover. Thank you.

• 48:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until next time, as always, I bid you to keep looking up.