The Bear star Jeremy Allen White is heading to the galaxy far, far away to play a Star Wars legacy character that no one could have guessed in the Jon Favreau-directed feature film Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.
As reported by Variety, White will lend his voice to the character of Rotta the Hutt (a.k.a. “Stinky”), the son of deceased crime boss Jabba the Hutt, who previously appeared in the 2008 animated feature Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which launched the animated series of the same name. In that, the young Rotta was kidnapped by Separatists as part of a plot to bring the Hutts into the Clone Wars but is ultimately returned to his father by Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano after being rescued by the Jedi.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is a feature spinoff from the acclaimed Disney+ TV series and will take place around a decade after the events of Return of the Jedi, which of course saw Rotta’s father Jabba the Hutt strangled to death by Princess Leia, his corpse subsequently blown to pieces aboard his sail barge. The film will see White featuring alongside Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, with Sigourney Weaver also set for an as-yet-unrevealed role.
That puts the new film around 30-35 years on since we last saw young Rotta so presumably the Hutt isn’t cute little Stinky any more now, and with Jabba’s death leaving a power vacuum (as we saw in Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett), could Rotta be looking to reclaim his father’s throne? Or, with Temuera Morrison previously stating that he won’t be appearing in the film as Tatooine’s current resident crime lord Boba Fett, could we perhaps instead see Rotta as an ally of Din Djarin and Grogu, given his past connection with Ahsoka Tano?
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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is set for release on May 22nd 2026.
Originally published December 9, 2024. Updated December 14, 2024.
