Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Katee Sackhoff Needed Pinocchio Tips From Bryce Dallas Howard

The latest episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian was an exciting one as it brought fan-favorite warrior Bo-Katan Kryze into the live-action universe complete with Katee Sackhoof — who provides the voice for Bo-Katan — reprising the role to make the leap from animation. But while the character itself was familiar, bringing Bo-Katan to life presented new challenges and, according to Sackoff, required episode director Bryce Dallas Howard to give her “Pinocchio” tips in order to pull it off.

In an interview for StarWars.com, Sackhoff described the shift as being something out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with her as the animated character getting to explore the “real world” for the first time.

“My first day felt a little untethered,” she admits. “I did feel a little like Roger Rabbit in this alternate world where I was human but I wasn’t…. Because I had seen her on screen and some of the things that she did on screen as animated Bo didn’t work for live-action Bo. And it was finding that right balance because I want fans to instantaneously feel familiar with her but I also wanted to make sure that she was bigger and better than they could have imagined.”

That’s where Howard and her tips came into play, with the director telling Sackoff to be “more real boy”.

“Bryce Dallas Howard was so funny. She kept saying ‘More real boy, Katee! More real boy!’”

Sackhoff previously told Variety about how one of the most fun things she got to do was establish Bo-Katan’s live-action appearance.

“One of the funnest things for me was establishing her look. The look of her face was so important to me because there were details about her that as a fan of Clone Wars and Rebels I’ve been accustomed to seeing,” said Sackhoff. “Her freckles, her red hair, her green eyes, her eyebrows which point down in a slightly unnatural way, and the scar on her forehead. I wanted all of it to be there, and to their credit, [Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni] and Bryce let me sit down and really play with that.”

She added, “With the hair color, we know what she looks like in animation, but does that translate to live-action? Just because she has bright orange hair doesn’t mean that’s the natural look on a real person. We altered and darkened her hair a little bit, we made the eyebrows just a touch more subtle, but they’re still there. I really wanted to make sure the fans recognized her and that she wasn’t a jarring presence for them visually. I didn’t want them to pick her apart, I wanted them to just enjoy the story with her in it.”

New episodes of Star Wars: The Mandalorian premiere on Disney+ every Friday. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

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