RETURN OF THE EX-JEDI

The Star Wars galaxy continues to expand on the small screen with AHSOKA. Rosario Dawson tells Total Film about her former Jedi's standalone journey, which features familiar faces, dangerous enemies and plenty of lightsaber action.

- MATT MAYTUM

Films and TV shows are increasingly geared towards fan service, with cameos, callbacks and references littered everywhere for the amusement of the hardcore stans that are the franchises’ most devoted followers. And sometimes fans can be of service, too. The spot-on casting of Rosario Dawson as Star Wars’ Ahsoka Tano may have never come to pass were it not for a canny fan suggestion on Twitter (which Dawson herself promptly ran with).

Outing herself as a fan and throwing her lightsaber hilt into the ring all the way back in 2017, Dawson landed on the radar of Dave Filoni, a creative powerhouse at Lucasfilm and one of the key heirs to George Lucas’ galactic empire. Filoni – who worked with Lucas on animated feature and series The Clone Wars – would later go on to help create a number of the animated series that have fleshed out the universe on the small screen, including Rebels, Resistance and The Bad Batch. Filoni has also been heavily involved in Disney+ live-action series The Mandalorian, alongside its writer/showrunner Jon Favreau.

That tweet – and Dawson’s interest – making its way to Filoni’s timeline was, Dawson has previously said, ‘the Force at work’. Filoni’s curiosity was captured, and a long-lasting mental note was made.

Dawson would eventually be cast for a guest appearance in the fifth episode (or Chapter, if you will, as Episodes mean something else in the Star Wars universe) of The Mandalorian Season 2, which debuted in November 2020. Despite the enormous amount of potential for exploring the character further, Dawson tells Total Film that it was very much a standalone appearance at that juncture.