Dave Filoni Praises Rosario Dawson as the Most Positive, Uplifting Person on Set
Star Wars fans who may have been missing some lightsaber action are having their own Christmas season now. The Ahsoka series, currently into its fourth week on Disney Plus, has featured at least one lightsaber-centric big action setpiece per episode, with special mention of Part Four’s three duels, and of course the Clone Wars sequences Dave Filoni wrote into Part Five. Obviously, this was to be expected for a series featuring Lady Tano confronting bad guys, and lead actress Rosario Dawson knew as much.
In an interview with TheWrap conducted before the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, Dawson explained how she was very aware of the character’s physicality. It would take a lot of effort for her to pull off even a mature version of the character we met in the Clone Wars, and for that, she had to undergo an intense training program — and she didn’t take it lightly. As Dawson explained, her team suggested a five-days-a-week schedule, but she argued the week had two more days:
“This character is so physical. And so the training was really important to me. I wanted to train seven days a week. They weren’t trying to get me to train seven days a week, they wanted me to take the weekends off. And I was like, ‘Absolutely not!’ Two hours every single day. And I started months before we were supposed to start training because I just knew that that’s such a dynamic part of this character.”
“Being able to physicalize that… you can’t pretend. Obviously, there’s a lot that I’m pretending because I’m not an amazing martial artist or Force-wielding Jedi Master. There were a couple of headshots that got through. But to be able to [get] into the space and not just feel like a costume, to feel like I was embodying this character and being in her world was really, really special.”
It was also a big moment for Dave Filoni, who has been overseeing every step of the character’s journey in the Star Wars galaxy. Filoni told the trade that there was even a point in which he realized the hard task she’d put on Rosario Dawson through the writing:
“At the end of the day, she has to be Ahsoka live onscreen right there in the moment. I think that she really grabbed the hold of that now; she’s comfortable in that skin. She respects the fans and their love of the character. That’s a lot of pressure on someone. And to wield lightsabers not just with one but two hands — sometimes I look back and I think, ‘Oh my gosh. What I wrote and put her through, all the training, all the fights, was that even reasonable?’ But she did it. And I’ve got to tell you, [Rosario] just from morning to night is the most positive, happy, uplifting person on set. I’m so proud that she’s the person that is playing this character. It’s significant to me, and we couldn’t have done better.”
If everything goes well, the season finale will not be the last time she puts on the lekku. There are already plans for a second season of Ahsoka that would lead into the big-screen event Dave Filoni was announced to be directing earlier this year. However, with two strikes going on at the moment (actors and writers), everything is up in the air. Hollywood hit the Pause button earlier this summer, and we still haven’t resumed.
The decision to move forward with another season depends on the show’s performance, according to reports. Of course, this is a very vague definition, as we don’t know exactly how well it’s doing. Lucasfilm reported that the first episode of the show had 14 million views on the platform over its first week, but we don’t know how the rest of them have been doing since then, or even how that number compares to other shows. The Little Mermaid scored 16 million views over its first five days on the platform, after a 2.5-month theatrical run.
Ahsoka will return with Part Six on Tuesday, at 6pm PT/9pm ET. You can check out Rosie’s spoiler discussion of the fifth episode here, and our live YouTube show SWNN Live! here, where members of our staff had a lively conversation about the episode.
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.
