She did not expect to be playing the badass Mandalorian warrior she originated in animation.
In a new podcast appearance with former Lex Luthor and perennial delight Michael Rosenbaum, Katee Sackhoff shared her anxiety about the role of Bo-Katan Kryze, which she originated in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Specifically, she expected that if the character ever did come to live-action, she wouldn’t be the one playing her.
Apparently, she had discussed the character moving to live-action very early on, because, who doesn’t want that? But she was sceptical she’d be involved.
“I always joked with him just thinking, ‘Of course they’ll recast it, they’ll probably hire Scarlett Johansson or something like that,’” she said on Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast (with a nod to Comicbook.com for pointing me toward the conversation).
It’s not, in hindsight, an irrational fear, considering that The Mandalorian did recast her fellow animated character Ahsoka Tano. But Sackhoff is a seasoned live-action actress anyway, and she looks similar enough to Bo-Katan that it was pretty workable. Not to mention that she’s fantastic in the role.
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But eventually, she was called into a meeting with Jon Favreau, and her dreams came true.
“It took me halfway through that meeting to realise that he was actually talking about me doing Bo-Katan,” she said. “I’m still pinching myself, not only that they have the thought to do this but that they believed that I could and that they ultimately let me.”
That’s super, super cool. The Mandalorian’s second season is streaming now.