The Mandalorian: Mercedes Varnado Describes Working With The Child

Star Wars productions have prided themselves and rewarded fans with their ability to bring space creatures and sets to practical life. It’s not all really on the set but when it is there the added level of realism lends a unique and enjoyable touch to scenes. The Mandalorian is obviously no exception as The Child, most often referred to be fans as Baby Yoda, has really been trotting around the set, moving, blinking, and eating. For Mercedes Varnado, the WWE Superstar known as Sasha Banks, sharing the set with The Child for he Chapter 11: The Heiress episode was everything she (and probably we) dreamed it would be.

Throughout Season 2 of The Mandalorian, The Child has been eating everything in sight. In one sequence where Varnado sat at a table with the remote controlled little one, The Child envied her Koska Reeves character as she took down some intergalactic soup. Such a move could end up getting a character Force-choked if the baby hasn’t eaten in a while but fortunately Varnado made it out safely.

“If you’re saying he’s a hungry diva then maybe he’s a diva on set as well because he is the center of attention because he is just so, so, so cute,” Varnado says. “Everybody, everyone, I’m talking about everybody, always ran up to him, had to look at him, had to see him because it was just so surreal that something could be and look so real. Because it moves, it has facial expressions, it went, ‘Ah!’ and it had teeth! Its cheeks moved! It’s just, I don’t know how they did it, it just looks so surreal. So he was the center of attention, and of course, why not? He’s Baby Yoda, he’s the child, he’s so legendary.”

As for my burning question of what a little green space creature from the same species lineage as Yoda smells like, well, the hunt for answers continues. “Oh my gosh, I am not a creep, okay?” Varnado said with a laugh. “I have no idea! Ask somebody else that. I’m not doing that, I’m not picking him up and sniffing him!”

It doesn’t sound like Varnado will be encountering The Child again in the next four episodes of The Mandalorian but a future for the character could be tremendously interesting and expansive for both The Mandalorian series and Star Wars lore as a whole. Read our uncut interview about all things Mandalorian right here!

Do you want to see more of Varnado as Koska Reeves in The Mandalorian? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!

The Mandalorian releases new episodes every Friday on Disney+.