Updated With More Pictures: Ahsoka Debuts Four New Character Images; Natasha Liu Bordizzo Praises Rosario Dawsons Dedication and Carrie Beck Recalls D

The actors may be on strike and prohibited from doing interviews, but that doesn't mean that major publications haven't been holding on to big pieces for a while. Entertainment Weekly has published a cover story focused on Ahsoka, 20 days before the series' two-episode premiere, featuring four new images from the show (though they don't exactly reveal much) as well as interviews with the main protagonists and executive producer Carrie Beck they did back in late June. (UPDATE: more images revealed after first posting the article, scroll down to see them.)



Beck started as an associate producer in the first two seasons of Star Wars: Rebels, was promoted to producer in season 3, acted as co-executive producer on The Mandalorian, and was now promoted to executive producer in Ahsoka. She has been working with Filoni for years, and she can tell the story now; as she explained it, 'He's telling the story of the student of Anakin, and he himself was a student of George.' Filoni had talked about the long-shot possibility of maybe, one day, doing live-action episodic Star Wars TV, as Beck explained:

The idea is no longer a possibility; it's a reality. Filoni was brought on board The Mandalorian shortly after Jon Favreau got the thumbs-up from Lucasfilm, and it wasn't long before he started thinking about how to fold his beloved character into the mix. He saw the light in season 2 and wrote her into a pivotal point for Mando's journey, with hopes that he would, one day, have the chance to spin her off into her own show.



Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



The casting process didn't take long. Rosario Dawson claims she was a fan of the character since the days of The Clone Wars, and after her retweeting fan art of her as the beloved Togruta caught Filoni's attention, she was the first to call. Fast forward to her first day on set (the one when George Lucas' picture with Grogu broke the Internet, that one), she coulnd't believe what the mirror was telling her:

But Filoni disagrees with that assessment, as he told Entertainment Weekly at Star Wars Celebration:

The EW piece confirms that the series will pick up after the events of The Book of Boba Fett, but we already know that we will be revisiting some key moments from Star Wars: Rebels in live-action; namely, the moment in the series' epilogue where she recruits Sabine to go search for Ezra. (We still don't know exactly where that moment falls in the timeline.) And that is the exact premise of the show. EW hints that Ahsoka's motivation is to find Thrawn so that he can lead them to Ezra. However, other interviews with the cast differ on this point and instead suggest that Ahsoka's goal is to find Thrawn, while Sabine's is to find Ezra.



Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Going back to the Rebels epilogue, Dave Filoni has been talking for years about the not-so-subtle reference to Gandalf the White that Ahsoka pulls with her look. And yet, the trailer suggests (along with other images that have been revealed) that, in live-action, she will be more of a Gandalf the Grey; Dawson talked about this exact point in her interview:

In that scene, she meets Sabine, who will be revealed in the series to have trained in lightsaber fighting under Ahsoka in between Ezra's disappearance and the main narrative of Ahsoka. Natasha Liu Bordizzo is picking up the baton from Tiya Sircar in live-action, after landing the role in 2021 submitting just one tape. The Australian-born actress talked to EW about Rosario Dawson's restless shooting process:

She also talked about how every single movement she makes on the set is studied in detail and is approved or not depending on whether the people behind the camera (namely, the hat-wearing showrunner) think Sabine would actually do that:

https://twitter.com/EW/status/1687131464658292736



Also making the jump to live-action is Hera Syndulla, played here by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who couldn't contain her excitement about playing a rebel leader who also comes across as 'maternal and nurturing':

On the opposite side of the fight, we have four main bad guys. Returning from The Mandalorian, Diana Lee Inosanto plays Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth. The actress remembers going to see Star Wars when she was 11 with her father, martial arts legend Dan Inosanto, who immediately after ran out to buy plastic lightsabers to train with his daughter. Said the actress, as she recalled the memory:

Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Working with/for/against(?) her are both Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno). When EW spoke to the cast in late June, the former had already passed away, so it was quite an emotional discussion for them. Sakhno, who seems to be her scene partner for a big chunk of the show, said his impact on her life is 'immeasurable', and recalled his jovial attitude on set, singing 'Who let the Shin out?' in between takes (a riff on Baha Men's 'Who Let the Dogs Out.') Inosanto added the following:

Last but not least is, of course, Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn. The Danish actor voiced the character for two seasons of Rebels and was apparently on Filoni's mind to play the live-action part long before Ahsoka was even a thing. The showrunner apparently told Mikkelsen 'Let's see if we can make that happen' when he replied he hadn't been to L.A. yet. The actor told EW:

[gallery columns='2' size='large' ids='151353,151355']



As Carrie Beck told EW, the main challenge of the series once it comes out on Disney Plus will be to lure in audiences who may not be as familiar with the Star Wars: Rebels lore:

But the relevance of the character goes well beyond that. Thanks to Tales of the Jedi, we know here Ahsoka's story started, and we've lived through many chapters of her life across the last 15 years. But what happens later? Ashley Eckstein voice-cameoed in The Rise of Skywalker along quite a few long-dead Jedi, but it hasn't been confirmed yet if Ahsoka has also perished at that point in the timeline. Said Beck:

It's unlikely that the show will answer the many questions we have about the character post-Return of the Jedi, but it will definitely be a good start. For more, we will have to wait for its already-planned season 2 (which is pending a green light depending on how the first season performs) and probably Dave Filoni's theatrical movie -- though her appearance there is all but inevitable, it hasn't been confirmed yet.



The first two episodes of Ahsoka start streaming on Disney Plus on August 23. To wrap things up, check out the new (and awesome) banner that the official Star Wars account is now using:







<hr />



UPDATE: After posting of the article, we noticed that Entertainment Weekly had revealed additional stills from the show on a different link. Check them out below:



(L-R): First Officer Jensen Corbyt (Shakira Barrera) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo via Entertainment Weekly.



(L-R): A Loth-cat and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



(L-R): Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Huyang (David Tennant) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Nicola Goode via Entertainment Weekly.



(Center): Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) with with New Republic Security Guards in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) in Lucasfilm's STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Suzanne Tenner via Entertainment Weekly.



Click HERE to check out and comment on this topic on our main site