Star Wars' animator says 'I took LSD' while working on 'Return of the Jedi

Phil Tippett has had a rich and varied career in Hollywood.

He started in stop-motion animation with the original 1977 "Star Wars," creating the masks of the Cantina aliens. That started a relationship with George Lucas that then branched out into work in visual effects on "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "RoboCop," and more recently the "Twilight" films.

But in a new video interview with Vice profiling his work, Tippett admits he was under the influence for at least one of the "Star Wars" movies.

"I took LSD when I was working on 'Return of the Jedi,'" he says in the opening of the video. "And it's fine. It was, like, very calming."

To anyone who grew up with the nightmarish sight of Jabba the Hutt and his palace, in retrospect, this may not seem like a huge surprise. But Tippett said it did end up hindering his work.

"And so I decided to go back to work. When I walked into the blue-screen stage, it was like, 'Ahhh.' I took way too much," he continued.

It certainly didn't stop him, though. The bearded Tippett, based in Berkeley, California, is one of the most admired visual effects supervisors in the business.

Watch the Vice profile of "Star Wars" animator Phil Tippett below: