Bill Hader Stopped Signing Merch After ‘F—ed Up’ Encounter With ‘Star Wars’ Fan

Actor and comedian Bill Hader won’t sign merchandise for fans he meets out in public anymore. In a recent interview on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, Hader described an awkward encounter with a fan that forced him to institute this new policy. Hader admitted that his aversion to autographs has made some fans a little angry since then.

Hader is best known for his work on Saturday Night Live and on HBO’s Barry, but some fans may not know that he was a voice consultant on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He and comedian Ben Schwartz helped develop the “voice” of the droid BB-8, which helps explain Hader’s story of being asked to sign a BB-8 doll. However, something about the encounter didn’t ring true to Hader, and once he understood what was going on he decided not to do autographs anymore at all.

“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,” he said. “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.’”

Having overheard the man, Hader was shocked. He recalled: “I was like, ‘that’s f—ed up.’ So now, I just kind of blanket, like, I’m not signing any of this s—.” The comedian added that he doesn’t feel he deserves much credit for the voice of BB-8.

“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 simply. “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, but I just know that was my experience doing it.”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is streaming now on Disney+, but this spring Hader is in the headlines for a very different kind of performance. The final season of his hit dramedy Barry is airing now on HBO and HBO Max. New episodes premiere on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.