As the season one finale approaches here in the UK, actor Pedro Pascal has been chatting to Yahoo! Movies about his role in Disney+’s live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian, discussing how his casting as Din Djarin came about, as well as the ‘Baby Yoda’ phenomenon.
“At the start of this thing, the most secret part of it was the first phone call,” said Pascal. “They said that Jon Favreau and [executive producer] Dave Filoni wanted to meet me to talk about ‘something Star Wars‘. Those were the words. So when I went to go and meet Jon, they brought me into a room where the walls were covered, corner to corner, with story illustrations of the whole first season. It was obviously this incredible Star Wars story with a Boba Fett-looking character at the centre of most of it and then, obviously, this adorable, small Baby Yoda.”
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“All on the same day, they took me to the set where they were doing camera tests,” he continued. “They introduced me to Kathleen Kennedy, they put the helmet on my head and then Jon sent me off with six scripts to look at and to get an idea. I might be getting him in trouble. The studio may not know this. This was all to get an idea, to help me consider the project and also, at least from my perspective, for them to consider whose voice they wanted to hear coming from inside that mask. They cast me in the part and as we got closer to launching the first season while shooting the second, it’s now a very practised lockdown on all things to make sure that nothing gets out.”
Pascal then went on to sing the praises of his lovable little co-star The Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, adding: “I can’t bring myself to lie and be like ‘we had no idea of the sensation that he would be.’ We never talked about it being a sure thing, but I unconsciously kept to myself that the very first time I saw the image in the illustration during that first meeting, I was like ‘oh my God, people are going to lose their mind over that.’ It was just unbelievable, from the production design to the company, Legacy Effects, that created the doll and so many of the props and creatures. You’re among the best and so you just really have to make yourself a passenger to that. To see them care for the doll and also find different ways for it to express itself and become an incredible scene partner is incredibly fascinating. It’s a pretty adorable thing.”
Both Pascal and Baby Yoda will be back on Disney+ this October for the second season of The Mandalorian, while it has also been confirmed this week that the show has received the green light for a third season.
