Also, he was an alien.
Yesterday, the third episode of Disney’s excellent Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian hit Disney Plus, providing us another behind-the-scenes look at how the show was made, focusing in particular on its third episode. There’s a lot of interesting tidbits from this episode that are worth sharing—Slash Film has a nice rundown of them—but my favourite involves Greef Karga, the bounty broker played by Carl Weathers.
As the show aired, Karga was a significant part of the action, appearing in the first few episodes before coming back to play a major role in the finale’s action. But that wasn’t always the plan. Originally, Weathers was supposed to play Karga only up until the third episode, “The Sin”, wherein he would get taken out by the Mandalorian as he gets away with Baby Yoda. Whether because of Weathers’s skills as an actor or because of the demands of plotting, that role ended up significantly expanded.
Also, in the first pass he was going to be an alien, and Weathers would be playing him in prosthetics. The prosthetics didn’t quite work out, though, with some directorial troubles pushing Favreau and co. to switch back to making the character a regular ol’ human being. All in all, it ended up being quite an expansion, from a role that was reportedly framed to Weathers as a favour to Jon Favreau, to one of the show’s most critical characters.
Another fun fact, while we’re here, is that Gina Carano didn’t have to audition for the role of Cara Dune. Which is fair; she’s absolutely perfect in the role.
The second season of The Mandalorian is slated for release this spring on Disney Plus, though it’s unclear if it’ll make that date, all things considered.