Star Wars: The Mandalorian’s Katee Sackhoff Reveals How She Found Out Bo-Katan Was Coming to Live-Action

This past week’s episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian included a moment that fans of the franchise have been waiting to see for quite some time. The animated worlds of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels made the jump to live action, as beloved character Bo-Katan Kryze, the true ruler of Mandalore, appeared on The Mandalorian. Even more exciting is the fact that the live-action version of the Bo-Katan is played by Katee Sackhoff, who also voiced the character on both animated shows.

Fans have not only hoped to see a live-action version of Bo-Katan, but many wished to see Sackhoff return to play her. Somehow, the stars in the galaxy aligned and the folks over at Lucasfilm made it happen, and Sackhoff was more than excited to take on the role in a whole new way. Sackhoff recently sat down with ET and explained just how her live-action Star Wars debut came about.

“It was such a surreal moment,” Sackhoff said. “I would have to go back and look at my tweets. Because I actually tweeted, ‘This is the biggest day of my career.’ My Dad raised me on sci-fi and Star Wars, and so this is like a dream come true. Playing her in Clone Wars and Rebels was a dream come true, this is insane. When news of The Mandalorian came out, I sort of thought to myself in the back of my mind, ‘You never know.’ I knew that it probably wouldn’t happen, fan-castings probably never happen, and so I sort of slyly mentioned it Dave Filoni when I saw him at one point. And he was like, ‘Well you never know,” in his cheeky little way that he does it.

“And then when I got a phone call to sit down with Jon Favreau I think my brain exploded. I took this meeting thinking I’d have to jump through hoops, and I walked in and it was pretty surreal. He was like, ‘Do you want to do this?’ I didn’t even know how to answer the question, of course I wanted to do it. I was such a huge fan of the show and this is just pretty amazing.”

For now, Sackhoff appears to be the only animated Star Wars character that will be played by their voice actor in the world of live-action projects. Thanks to a name-drop by Bo-Katan in the latest episode of The Mandalorian, we know that Ahsoka Tano is also going to be arriving on the show. However, rumors surrounding the character’s debut have suggested that she’ll be played by Rosario Dawson.

Are you excited to see these animated Star Wars characters make their way to The Mandalorian? Let us know in the comments!