George Lucas Came Up With the Name Axe (Woves) On the Set of The Mandalorian Season 2

Simon Kassianides recently sat down with The HoloFiles to discuss his time on The Mandalorian as Axe Woves, Bo-Katan's companion-turned-foe-turned-ally, whose name has a very cool behind-the-scenes backstory.



As revealed during the interview, when George Lucas visited the set of season 2 in early 2020, he apparently suggested Favreau and Filoni name one of the characters 'Axe', which they eventually did, as Kassianides explained it:

Axe Woves (Simon Mario Kassianides) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season 3, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.



In the second season, the character only appeared in Chapter 11 and didn't have a lot to do besides act as Bo-Katan's bodyguard. As Katee Sackhoff revealed in an interview with Kristian Harloff, they had actually shot Woves' death scene for that episode, which is why he wasn't brought back for the finale. But at some point, they decided to cut it out, and the character returned for season 3 to play a pivotal part in Bo-Katan's arc. Kassianides probably couldn't have been happier; Sackhoff also revealed that the actor is a massive fan of the franchise, which he himself corroborated to The HoloFiles:

With the third season, he also had the chance to bring more layers to the character, both through the scripts and also by giving him a backstory from the costume and everything around him:

(L-R): Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN, season 3, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.



The character did survive the season, and in fact, we watched him with the rest of the Mandalorians during the final moments of Chapter 24, yelling 'For Mandalore!' during Ragnar Vizsla's initiation ceremony. There was some online chatter after the episode aired that perhaps Ragnar, son of the late Paz Vizsla, could be Axe's foundling; this is what Kassianides said about it when asked:

You can check out the entire video interview here:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8osYgG5Ojs



The Mandalorian season 4 is coming, though it's unknown if Kassianides will be back. The project had started pre-production aiming for an October shoot before the writers went on strike; now, it's unknown if they will be able to meet that deadline.



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