Natasha Liu Bordizzo Opens up About Using a Lightsaber in ‘Ahsoka’
In the extended trailer for Ahsoka that was shown at Star Wars Celebration in London, convention attendees lucky enough to get in the room got the chance to see a few additional details that were not privy to the public through the main trailer that had dropped the day before. Perhaps most notably, those details included the first-ever shot of Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn in live-action, but there was more than that. Another moment that got a huge pop in the crowd was when Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s Sabine Wren ignited a green lightsaber.
What’s interesting about this is that during the panel, the cast onstage were talking about their experiences doing the stunts for the show, and particularly getting to train under stunt coordinator Ming Qui, who was key to bringing the lightsaber fights to life. Rosario Dawson and Ivanna Sakhno gave very detailed explanations about their experience fighting with the iconic weapon on set, but Bordizzo also joined that part of the conversation, though she didn’t disclose at the time she had also fought with one. We just assumed she was referring to doing stunts as a Mandalorian warrior — Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays Hera in the series, backed out of that portion of the panel as she didn’t have a lot of fights in the show. As we learned a few minutes later, there was another reason why Bordizzo had a lot to say about her collaboration with Qui.
Speaking to Empire Magazine (via Collider) as part of their 20-page coverage on the Star Wars franchise in their Summer 2023 issue, Bordizzo was finally able to speak a bit more about her experience on set, adding how her character’s Mandalorian lineage added so much weight to the way she wielded the lightsaber:
“I’m just really glad that’s out there. It’s been really hard talking about my fight-training without talking about the fact that it’s ‘saber-training, which is literally all I’ve been doing for so long. The Mandalorian [physicality] is very Western, and then the ‘saber style is very samurai-influenced. Trying to embody those two things – sometimes one right after the other – in the choregraphy was super interesting, because they’re such different modes of being. I really had fun with the journey of trying to master both.
The trailer shows a bit more than Sabine igniting the lightsaber — we see that she does so right before going into battle against Ivanna Sakhno’s character, Shin Hati, and we even get to see both of their lightsabers clash. Sabine’s blade is green, and while it was hard to make out from where I was sitting, it definitely looked similar to Ezra’s weapon; most reports coming out of the panel echoed that thought. The actress wouldn’t confirm it, though:
“What can I tease? It’s just part of her journey. Not just the ‘saber itself, but what comes with that, and what that means, and what mindset it takes to wield that weapon.”
Natasha Liu Bordizzo is set to play a major role in the upcoming Ahsoka series, which we can infer from the fact that she was the second name officially confirmed by Lucasfilm after Rosario Dawson to be in the series. That happened almost a year before the rest of the ensemble was announced. While she’s rocking a long hair in the majority of the trailer, the closing shot of the extended version previewed at Celebration had her in the traditional Rebels haircut (see image above) while on the Ghost cockpit and trying not to crash against a space whale. It doesn’t get more Filoni than that.
Ahsoka will premiere on Disney Plus in August, though a specific date is yet to be announced. This also seems like a good time to rewatch the trailer:
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.
