If you’ve caught the first episode of The Mandalorian’s Season 3 and the just-released second episode, you would know that the planet of Mandalore will be featured heavily this season.
And when it comes to affairs taking place on the Mandalorian homeworld, you can be sure that Bo-Katan Kryze will be have a big say in things.
Longtime Star Wars fans would already be familiar with Bo -atan from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated series. And avid fans would know that the actress who voiced the character in those shows, Katee Sackhoff, also plays the live-action version of Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian.
The season starts with Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin (better known as ‘Mando’) seeking atonement for removing his helmet and losing his status as a Mandalorian. In order to be redeemed, he has to bathe in the Living Waters underneath the Mines of Mandalore, and so, he seeks out Bo-Katan’s help to do so.
During a virtual one-on-one interview, Sackhoff said we can expect to see more of the Mandalorian people this season.
“”It has always been Bo-Katan’s dream to bring the Mandalorian people back together, so we’re definitely going to see a lot more of them this season,” she said.
In case you’re only getting to know Bo-Katan from The Mandalorian, here’s a bit of background on her. Bo-Katan is part of Mandalorian royalty, a princess of the former ruling house of Mandalore. In The Clone Wars, she was a member of Death Watch, a Mandalorian splinter group that believed in reviving the race’s warrior past.
She later became the Regent of Mandalore, but was ousted when she opposed the Empire. Later, Mandalore was laid waste by the Empire in a catastrophic event called the Night of a Thousand Tears, which supposedly left the planet inhabitable.
Sackhoff said that the character of Bo-Katan still continues to surprise her even after years of playing her both in the animated shows and The Mandalorian (she first voiced the character in The Clone Wars in 2012).
“What surprises me the most is how much the time she had in Death Watch has affected her emotional state. That still surprised me and we’ll see more of that this season,” she said, adding that playing the character in live action was definitely a bigger challenge for her, especially the physical side.
“The most important thing when playing this character for an entire season is making sure that my physical fitness is up, so that I have the muscle to just stand on my feet for 16 hours a day in the suit!” she said, laughing.
“The suit itself doesn’t start out heavy, but after you've been in it for 15-16 hours, it definitely starts to feel heavy. And do that for six months, and your back will start to hurt!
“So it was a matter of keeping my muscle tone up, and also really, really stretching out. It wasn't just myself – all the stunt performers on the show were constantly stretching.”
Pascal has said in other interviews that he can’t see anything when he is wearing Mando's armour, but Sackhoff said her helmet was much better.
“The women on the show, the eye holes on our helmets actually slant down just a little bit, so we have peripheral vision at the bottom of our eye holes. But on the guys’ helmets, the eyeholes go straight across, so they can’t see anything. So I really lucked out there! Plus, my helmet also has a fan in it! It’s like I’m driving the Maserati of helmets!
Looking back at her time voicing the character in the animated shows, Sackhoff reckons she would have done things a little differently knowing what she knows now about the character.
"I didn’t even realise how young she was when I was playing her (in those shows) in the beginning. (Producer) Dave (Filoni) always had in his mind that she was in her late teens and early 20s. I just played her generically older than that," she said. "So I think if I went back, I would play her with a little bit more youthfulness in her voice, instead of the richness in tone of age."
The first two episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3 are currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, with new episodes available every week.
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