Star Wars: Ahmed Best Teases What’s Next for His Mandalorian Character (And Why He’s Not Like Other Jedi)

To paraphrase Qui-Gon Jinn: There’s always a bigger role. In his first major role, actor Ahmed Best played Jar Jar Binks, the infamous CG-generated Gungan, in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Best went on to reprise Jar Jar in a diminished capacity in the next two installments of George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy, 2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, but these days, he might best be known for saving fan-favorite Grogu on The Mandalorian.

The season 3 episode “Chapter 20: The Foundling” revealed that it was Best’s Jedi Knight Kelleran Beq who rescued Grogu from the Jedi Temple when Emperor Palpatine ordered the Great Jedi Purge: Order 66. Beq — who originated as a young Jedi trainer on the Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge web series — appeared on The Mandalorian just once, and just as soon as he whisked Grogu away from Coruscant to safety, he disappeared.

“I’m always ready to put the robe back on. I know where he went in my head, so hopefully we can make that real one of these days,” Best told ComicBook at Star Wars Celebration 2025. “That was just so much fun to do.”

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Best, a trained martial artist who developed Beq’s character for Jedi Temple Challenge, added that his brief action sequence on The Mandalorian was just “one-tenth of one percent of what I can do. So to be able to do a full-length [version] of that would be a dream come true.”

While Best acknowledged there’s been a Jar Jar renaissance (the Jar Jarenaissance?) in the decades since the Star Wars prequels, he told ComicBook he’d much rather reprise his role as Kelleran Beq. Despite his reputation as the “Sabered Hand,” Best says his Jedi’s true expertise is teaching.

“I think there’s a lot of Jedi stories to be told,” Best said. “There have been a lot of reluctant teachers as Jedi in Star Wars. When we met Yoda for the first time, he didn’t want to teach Luke Skywalker. When we meet Anakin for the first time, Yoda and Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi are like, ‘Don’t teach this kid.’”

“Kelleran Beq wants to be a teacher. That’s the calling,” he continued. “And even though Kelleran is one of the baddest Jedi to ever put the robes on, his passion is to raise Jedi. So I would love to see that idea that teachers are superheroes and to really talk about what that means as far as being a Jedi goes and as far as training the new Jedi coming up.”