Star Wars: Ahsoka Star Rosario Dawson Studied Animated Shows "Over and Over and Over"

Rosario Dawson is the actor bringing Ahsoka Tano from animation to live-action, but she's keeping one eye on the character's origin in Star Wars cartoons. Dawson debuted in the role in The Mandalorian's second season and returned in The Book of Boba Fett. Next, she stars in the Ahsoka series on Disney+, which is now filming. The first footage from the show debuted at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim. It confirmed that the series' animation roots run deep, with characters from Star Wars Rebels jumping to live-action. That includes Natasha Liu Bordizzo playing Sabine Wren, the Rebel Mandalorian. Speaking from the convention, Dawson says they've never lost sight of these characters' animated history and continue to look at specific frames of animation for inspiration in their live-action fight training.

"Over and over and over again, yes, freeze-framing," Dawson says. "I think some of my favorite stuff is actually, so we work with this amazing stunt coordinator, Ming, who is a Jedi like literally. She was taken into a temple at nine years old and from nine to 19 only saw her family once a year, so she was basically a youngling, and then trained in martial arts for 10 full years, and that's who's training us in Wushu and all kinds of things. And I will take freeze frames and clips from the shows and show her and be like, 'Ahsoka can do this. Can we can you train me to do this? And she's like, 'That is not physically possible. that's an animation, but this we can do." And it's been really, really, really amazing. So thank goodness for all of that research and history that we get to play off of."

Ahsoka Tano will also return to the world of animation, prominently featured in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. That's the freshly-announced upcoming anthology series featuring stories about Qui-Gon Jinn (with Liam Neeson returning), Count Dooku, and Mace Windu (perhaps showing off his shatterpoint skill). Speaking to ComicBook.com earlier this month, Ahsoka's voice actor, Ashley Eckstein said she hasn't met or talked to Dawson or otherwise contributed to the Ahsoka live-action show. She hopes that will change.

"It's something that I have not been a part of," Eckstein said. "I would love to be, but I'm purely a fan at this point. I'm not involved in the live-action series. I've not met Rosario Dawson yet. We've never had the pleasure of meeting. I talk about throwing your dreams out into the universe. And so, it's definitely a dream of mine to maybe one day get to be involved and maybe make a cameo or get to play a part, or meet Rosario at some point, one day. Got to throw your dreams out into the universe."

Ahsoka will debut on Disney+ in 2023. Tales of the Jedi premieres in Fall 2022.