Chewbacca (/tʃuːˈbɑːkə/), nicknamed "Chewie", is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He is a Wookiee, a tall, hirsute biped and intelligent species from the planet Kashyyyk. Chewbacca is the loyal friend and first mate of Han Solo, and serves as co-pilot on Solo's spaceship, the Millennium Falcon. Within the films of the main saga, Chewbacca is portrayed by Peter Mayhew from episodes III to VII (Mayhew shares the role with his body double Joonas Suotamo on Episode VII). Suotamo took over the role alone in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and reprised the role in Solo: A Star Wars Story. The character has also appeared on television, books, comics, and video games.
Chewbacca's creation as a "gentle, hairy, non-English-speaking co-pilot" was inspired by George Lucas seeing his own dog sitting up on the passenger seat of his car. It is said that Chewbacca's name is derived from собака (sobaka), the Russian word for dog.
In all five screen appearances, Chewbacca was played by Peter Mayhew, who was chosen for his height of 7'3" (2.2 m). Five identical costumes were made for Mayhew: in the three original films and a holiday special, the suits were made of yak hair and mohair. In Revenge of the Sith, the suit was made of more comfortable materials, though Mayhew's filming only lasted a day. Only Mayhew's blue eyes could be seen in his costume, but fans easily recognize him by his gestures, and his co-workers claimed the ability to tell when a stand-in was taking his place.
Chewbacca's voice was created by the original films' sound designer, Ben Burtt, from recordings of walruses, lions, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers, and badgers in Burtt's personal menagerie.[9] The individual recordings were mixed at different ratios for Chewbacca's different utterances. One of the most prominent elements in the voice was a black bear named Tarik, from Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose, California.
The original costume was created by Stuart Freeborn and his wife Kay Freeborn, who hand knitted the torso section. During preproduction of The Force Awakens, Creature Effects Supervisor Neal Scanlan commented that the original suit was far more sophisticated than they had originally realized, leading him to entirely scrap their first attempt at making the new suit, go back and study Freeborn's work in order to better appreciate how it worked, and attempt to emulate it.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca
