Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Shocked by Character’s Season 3 Return

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was released in theaters last week, and it features many returning stars from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as some franchise newcomers. One such fresh face is Katy O’Brian who plays Jentorra, a Quantum Realm freedom fighter. You may have recognized her from some television appearances, including playing a comms officer in four episodes of the second season of Star Wars: The Mandalorian. The third season of the beloved Disney+ show debuts next week, and you can expect to see O’Brian’s character back again. In fact, she recently told Collider that she was shocked to be returning to the role. 

“A complete surprise … The thing about The Mandalorian is you never know what’s gonna happen. They have you read lines several different ways. Like, ‘Okay, so this one maybe you’re a dog at heart.’ [Laughs] ‘This one maybe you’re evil, maybe you’re good.’ So they just have you read it several ways and when you see the final product, you’re like, ‘Oh, okay. I guess that’s my character now.’ They’re so secretive you never know what’s going on. Never. And I’m just very grateful that I’m always able and ready to take the call and they tend to be really flexible as well.”

O’Brian added, “It’s so hard to come up with a backstory when no one knows where you’re going. [Laughs] Or at least no one will tell you. So I kind of just used the circumstances. I kind of used, you know, what’s your role? What’s the purpose of the scene? What do you need to do and what needs to be done? What does the other actor need? And then let them kind of take what performance they want. It’s hard.” 

Katy O’Brian Compares Working With Marvel, Star Wars, and DC:

O’Brian recently spoke with ComicBook.com‘s Jenna Anderson about appearing in multiple major franchises. 

“It definitely helps to be able to work with a blue screen and to be able to pretend things are there that aren’t,” O’Brian explained. “I think that’s one of the more difficult things that we have to deal with special effects technology now. That was really helpful. Trying to understand this world that they’ve built in a very short period of time is also really helpful. I think Black Lightning was the most difficult because I was just given a bunch of sci-fi jargon, that some days I would have a few hours to have four pages ready to shoot. So that was solid prep for this.”

O’Brian also talked about her role in The Mandalorian, which included episodes that were directed by Quantumania‘s Peyton Reed.

“I have always been a Marvel fan,” O’Brian revealed. “Growing up, my brother and I will watch Saturday morning cartoons, X-Men, Spider-Man. We were there every day. So I feel like everyone wants to be in a Marvel movie. They’re really excited about it. It’s epic. It’s an adventure. You get to do crazy, fun, quirky characters. When I found out it was Ant-Man, because I had no idea what I was auditioning for, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s Peyton. That’s Peyton’s property.’ He directs that and I worked with him in Mandalorian and he was an amazing director. He is so fun to work with. He has just good vibes on set all day, low stress. It’s awesome. And then when I met with him and he described Jentorra as this Red Sonia, Conan the Barbarian, just epic baddy. I was like, ‘Yes, 100%.’ I think she’s the only character in the MCU that I really wanted to play. I mean was like, it was a dream role for sure.”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now playing exclusively in theaters, and Star Wars: The Mandalorian returns on March 1st.