‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 Will See Grogu Become More Central to the Story, Teases Rick Famuyiwa
As part of their coverage of the new season of The Mandalorian, Empire Magazine have just released a new piece of concept art that features Grogu chasing down a group of “crab-like rock-looking creatures” (see above).
Rick Famuyiwa, who directed for the first two seasons and, on top of directing a couple of episodes of the third, was also promoted to executive producer on the series, revealed what we can expect from Grogu in the new episodes:
“There will be things [in Season 3] that once again have people talking about Grogu. In incremental ways, he’s growing as a character and in this partnership with Mando. As this relationship grows, Grogu has to become more central in things that are going on. He’s now firmly at the hip of Mando in every adventure…
The purity of the character brings out the best in the people round him. This next season continues to attach to that idea.”
The little green puppet has been causing brain meltdowns on set over his cuteness ever since season 1 started shooting, and famously, one of the first to be captivated by his looks was Werner Herzog. Legacy effects founder John Rosengrant revisited the actor’s endearment for the baby a few years ago:
“He was worried that it was brain-dead at one point – the AD said, ‘Go ahead and shut it off, he’s off-camera as eyeliner for Werner’. Werner got very concerned.”
Tamara Carlson Woodard, who created the character’s cloak and helped bring the design to life from the first pieces of concept art, said the following about the process of creating the puppet from simple drawings:
“I built a little body based off what I would want to hold, a little stuffed-animal version without a face. I called it ‘Yermit’, because it wasn’t Yoda, and it wasn’t Kermit.”
Pedro Pascal, in an interview of his own with the magazine, explained what wearing the suit is like on set:
“It’s like putting on a head-to-toe glove with weights on it. It’s ironic that you can’t see any facial expression because it puts you in the world so completely, and instantly makes the character feel real – but you can’t see shit!
They’ve continued to finesse and make it more comfortable, but it’s like going blind. Your breath completely fogs up the narrow slit that you can see through. There’s no peripheral vision. If there’s a hole, I’m gonna fall into it. When it’s on, you immediately feel powerful, protected, dangerous, and like a protector.”
This is especially interesting because, up until now, we thought Pedro had barely spent any days on the set of season 3, as the schedule matched his time filming for The Last of Us. It’s possible that he popped by to film some helmetless scenes during the few days of reshoots last summer, or that he took a few days off from the HBO set, but it’s clear that his time in the suit this season was minimal. The actor reportedly spent more time on the set of season 2 than he did in season 1. The two stunt people responsible for wearing the suit when Pedro is not there are Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne.
More images from the new season, as well as the pictures from the photoshoot Empire did with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, have also appeared on Reddit:
The Mandalorian returns with new episodes on March 1. Stay tuned for more in the coming days!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
