Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Opens Up About the “Pressure” Carrie Fisher Faced While Making Original Trilogy

The fourth episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian, “The Foundling,” was released on Disney+ last week and featured an exciting Grogu flashback as well as an update on what the Children of the Watch are up to. When it comes to The Mandalorian, there are multiple women to root for. This season seems to be putting a major focus on Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff), and the show has also featured the recurring characters The Armorer (Emily Swallow), Peli Motto (Amy Sedaris), Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), and more. In addition to The Mandalorian characters, there are also plenty of awesome women featured in the Star Wars sequels, animated shows, comics, and more. However, when Star Wars first began, the only woman who was front and center was Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). Recently, Swallow appeared at FAN Expo Cleveland (via Yahoo! Entertainment) and talked about the women of Star Wars.

“I mean, what a lot of pressure that put on Carrie Fisher to have to be the one hero female for a while! I think it’s wonderful the range of women now that we have in Star Wars and the fact that it’s not that remarkable that they’re women,” Swallow shared. “They’re just people. I really love that about The Armorer. I love that she’s in this position of leadership and she is respected and looked up to and it doesn’t seem to be anything exceptional that she’s a woman. She is this powerful spiritual leader of these people and it doesn’t seem like she’s an exception to the rule. And I love that. I love that we notice she’s a woman and then that stands out to us, but she’s just awesome.” 

Will Bo-Katan Stay With The Children of the Watch? 

Bo-Katan has been at a crossroads during this season of The Mandalorian. Her plans to restore herself as the rightful ruler of Mandalore were thwarted when Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) ended up with the Darksaber. Since the weapon can only be won in combat, the second season finale had fans thinking Bo would be coming for Din and the weapon, but the premiere revealed that she has given up on her quest. Now, the Children of the Watch have invited her to be a part of their cult. For now, it seems like Bo is interested in staying, but it’s hard to believe she’ll follow their rules forever. 

“She truly is alone and has nowhere to go,” Sackoff told Dagobah Dispatch. “To be immediately accepted by people is new for her. She may or may not be trying to figure out if that’s a place where she should potentially stay.” When asked if Bo still wants to rule Mandalore, Sackoff replied, “I truly believe at this point that she hopes someone else steps up. She doesn’t want the responsibility. The responsibility cost her everything … Leading didn’t work, so maybe fitting in will.”

“We have to go back to see why she’s doing what she’s doing,” Sackhoff previously told Deadline. “This is a person who has fought, fought against her own people. She’s fought forever and she realizes that doesn’t work. You can’t continue to fight amongst yourselves. I think with Din – I don’t know if I’ll go as far as to say that she respects and trusts him – but she doesn’t not. He’s done nothing. If didn’t have the Darksaber, he’s done nothing that would make him her enemy. I think that is her problem is that she realizes that she’s not going to fight her people anymore. She’s not going to fight someone who she doesn’t have a reason to fight. Every single possibility, every place that she’s at right now, every direction she’s done before didn’t work before. That’s what she’s trying to figure out.”

The first four episodes of Star Wars: The Mandalorian‘s third season are streaming on Disney+.