Grant Imahara :: Character Guides

Electronics and radio-control specialist Grant Imahara is a former animatronics engineer and model maker for George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, where he worked on such movies as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and The Matrix Reloaded.

In addition to operating R2-D2 (one of only a handful of official operators), Grant has another claim to beloved-character fame: developing a custom circuit to cycle the Energizer Bunny's arm beats and ears at a constant rate. In fact, he's responsible for all the electronics installation and radio programming on the current generation of bunnies, even serving as the bunny's driver and crew supervisor on numerous commercials.

While he earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, Grant actually picked up many of his mechanical skills from the machinists at the ILM model shop, many of whom date back to 1986's Howard the Duck. He's also the author of the book, Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots. His own machine, Deadblow, is a BattleBots champion that continues to strike terror into the hearts of fellow competitors.