Katee Sackhoff Talks More Bo-Katan in ‘The Mandalorian’
Katee Sackhoff has done plenty of interviews about Bo-Katan Kryze and her role in The Mandalorian recently, and now she’s spoken to StarWars.com about her character.
Of course, Sackhoff has been playing Bo-Katan ever since she voiced the character in The Clone Wars starting 11 years ago. She spoke to the official site about the difference between voicing the character in animation and portraying her in live-action:
You know, it’s a completely different medium and I don’t think I realized how different it was, to be honest, until I actually stepped on stage. I thought that I had done all of the work and realized that I didn’t actually know how Bo-Katan moved and talked and held herself. All of a sudden, I felt completely unprepared even though I knew so much about her and her backstory.
I don’t think anybody really anticipated that she would be back to this extent. And if they did, they didn’t tell me!
One of my favorite things to do last year — I mean, I didn’t do it like repeatedly, that would be kind of weird, — but I watched the fan reaction compilation that was put together of Bo showing up, and it just warmed my heart. I was so happy that she was so well received. I mean, listen: love her, hate her. You can hate her. She’s done some pretty appalling things in her existence. But the reaction and overall excitement — and to see people instantaneously know who she was, the moment she landed… was really cool. I loved it.
As previously reported and seen in the new episodes, Bo-Katan is in an interesting place in The Mandalorian season 3. Sackhoff elaborated a bit on where the character is and how she got there:
This is a woman who has had a lot of challenges in her life, a lot of heartache and disappointments. She’s always done what she thought was right for the Mandalorian people…And she’s made a lot of mistakes in the process. I think that she wears all of that and there’s so much guilt and so much turmoil. That plays itself out a little bit this season. For her to not take the Darksaber [in Season 2 is] such a huge moment. Something’s different, you know? There’s a reason why she didn’t, and I think it lends itself to who she has become and where she’s going.
She also spoke about her relationship with other cast members, revealing that Emily Swallow — who plays The Armorer — is one of the funniest people on set, often coming up with silly ideas for Mandalorian spin-off shows like “The Bachelorian”.
We all spend a lot of time together, and we put our heart and soul into this. It’s a lot of long hours. I’m not gonna lie and say that sitting in a suit for 16 hours a day is comfortable. So you do things to sort of keep morale up. The crew’s working super hard and, and you know, Emily is definitely the person who usually makes people laugh.
While Katee Sackhoff had stunt doubles on The Mandalorian set, she has often had to do her own stunts over the course of her career. While she still did some of her own stunts this season, she had to step back sometimes and let her doubles do the work.
When I started in this industry, it was really hard to find doubles to match me. You know, I was always just slightly bigger than most of the women around that were actors at the time and the stunt doubles, they just couldn’t find anyone. I was doubled by a man at one point. It was literally me doing my own stunts because the match was not perfect, and I wanted it to look believable.
I’ve realized that, number one, I don’t bounce back as well as I used to. But also, I think that if I take my ego out of it and, and acknowledge that we are trying to create the best character and the most realistic, amazing, crazy-tough woman in the world, in this character… I can’t do all of that and that would be egotistical to think that I can. So, there were a few different women in this suit this year, and every one of them served a phenomenal purpose to make Bo as fierce as possible.
I have a wicked knee slide! Every once in a while, when I can do a knee slide, I definitely do a knee slide.
Sackhoff has already talked at length about how she wanted Bo-Katan to appear here compared to her live-action debut in season 2, and she explains that she wanted the character to look like she lived in this live-action world rather than just cut out of animation:
For this season, I wanted to lean in and own pieces of her more. We worked on the hair and her freckles might be a little bit more pronounced. I wanted her to look slightly different, not so much just cut out of animation, but that she looks like she belongs in this world.
The actress also revealed that she had to learn a new stunt for The Mandalorian season 3, but that she couldn’t reveal what it was because “it would give things away”. Perhaps she will get to ride the Mythosaur after all? For the full interview, head over to StarWars.com.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
