Ahsoka: Thrawn Casting Revealed at Star Wars Celebration

By Brandon Davis

Star Wars Celebration revealed who will be playing Thrawn in the live-action Star Wars universe, with Lars Mikkelsen reprising the role he portrayed in animated form previously. Mikkelsen's Thrawn was seen in a teaser shot from the Ahsoka trailer which did not reveal his face before a trailer made exclusively for Star Wars Celebratiin played and showed his entire look on Saturday. ComicBook.com was in attendance of the panel. 

Mikkelsen took the stage at the Ahsoka panel. "We met through Skype," Mikkelsen said of him and Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni, who he previously worked with on animated Star Wars shows. "At some point, finishing up that series, David asked me, 'Have you ever been to LA?' I went, 'No, no/' 'We're gonna make that happen,' he said...I've never been on a set with so much passion, I must say. People are so passionate about bringing this to life for you guys."

Filoni took a moment during the panel to credit Tim Zahn's books for Thrawn. "You would walk past the bookstore in the mall and see this standee and it said, 'Heir to the Empire,' and you wouldn't believe it," he said. He describes Thrawn as, "Strategically brilliant. He doesn't have the Force and it doesn't matter. He will outsmart you and he will trap you."

Speaking to ComicBook.com exclusively on Friday, Filoni talked further about bringing Thrawn to live-action. "It's something I've done several times now, is have an animation character make the jump [to live-action]," Filoni said. "All I can say is, I asked [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] about this, 'How do you know when you've found the right person for the part?' and she just looked at me and said, 'Dave, you just know.' And she's right. Every time I've leaned into that process and gone through a bunch of auditions, [and] there's always one person that stands out. What might be notable for people, is Jon and I don't do that together, we do it separately. We like to do that because we like to see if we come up with the same person. We have an amazing record of accuracy together, to be connected to the same person."

Are you excited to see Mikkelsen play Thrawn in live-action for Ahsoka? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Twitter! Ahsoka is scheduled to debut on Disney+ in August. 

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