Dave Filoni, producer of The Mandalorian, and Rosario Dawson, who stars as Ahsoka, have revealed what it took to bring the beloved character to life.
Season two of The Mandalorian has been a true joy for Star Wars fans. The latest treat was live-action debut of one of the franchise’s most beloved animated characters in Ahsoka Tano.
Ahsoka is the former Jedi padawan of Anakin Skywalker and in the latest episode she revealed some fascinating details about Grogu (aka Baby Yoda). Rosario Dawson was the actress behind the character and in an interview with Vanity Fair, she and writer/director Dave Filoni discuss in length how they took this animated character and translated her to live-action.
Filoni began: “It was a pretty amazing thing as we designed the costume and worked out all the details of that. Everything got considered to an unbelievable degree—the head tails, the horns, I can’t even tell you. It’s hard. It’s so rare a person in my position from animation gets to craft and guide the character’s jump to live-action.
“Many tests were done, screen tests, because within the Volume [The Mandalorian set that creates backgrounds on a giant digital screen] it will tend to lean magenta. You have to worry about how a character like Ahsoka would look because the temperature that we have her orange could be dramatically different in the Volume than in stage shots. So there were tiny little considerations that had to made and adjusted.
“Performance-wise I don’t want her to be lost in all of this headgear and makeup, but she definitely is not. I kept things subtle in some ways with the markings. I mean, the funny thing is that the white markings over the brow are always done in animation to give an eyebrow performance.… I didn’t want a brightly saturated character. Again, in animation it works, but in live action I think it works another way, and so you just have to play with the values and see.”
Dawson added: “What I love about the Togruta is that they have these facial markings, but they’re all different on all of the different women that we’ve seen. In the cartoon it almost looks like a face paint, but what [Filoni] really wanted it to come off as very natural.
“They definitely wanted [the make up] to be very warm and natural. In the animation it’s very different and bold, and the lighting is so different. But in the real world they wanted it to have a different kind of energy. It was fun to be able to see how that shifted when she had the lightsabers closer to her face, how you see it and feel it differently in the different lighting and the smoke.
“Everything was pretty firmly on. Everything was built specifically to my skull and body, and the headband that she has on with the tails actually clips in the back and holds it in place. We were doing stunts in it and everything, and it wasn’t going anywhere.”
The last touch was getting Ahsoka’s eyes correct, as Filoni explains: “I said, ‘Well, Ahsoka’s eyes are blue and yours are not, but I don’t want you to worry about it. If you don’t want to go for that, we can just say that in this version they’re not.’ And Rosario insisted. She’s like, ‘No, no, no. Let me try it.'”
Dawson commented: “I remember when I put the contacts on, that was when it really solidified—the head piece, the tails, the shape, the coloring, everything. Doing the face marking, doing my skin, wearing the costume, all of that was absolutely incredible. But I still kind of felt like I was in cosplay. The second the contacts went in, it was Ahsoka. I felt like I disappeared.”
It certainly sounds like a lot of hard work and attention to detail went into getting the character right. Reception from fans has been very positive so that will surely be a big relief to Filoni and Dawson. Hopefully, we will be seeing plenty more of Ahsoka in live-action soon.
The Mandalorian season two sees the returning Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin), Gina Carano (Cara Dune), Carl Weathers (Greef Karga), Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon) and Bill Burr (Mayfield) joined by the likes of Temuera Morrison (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones), Katee Sackhoff (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), Michael Biehn (The Terminator), Rosario Dawson (Daredevil) and WWE Superstar Sasha Banks.
The Mandalorian season two airs on Fridays on Disney+.
