When it comes to Lucasfilm’s live-action Disney+ series The Mandalorian, three things are immediately true: (1) it’s cool, (2) Baby Yoda is our god now, and (3) the Star Wars film references are never going to stop. Aside from these three obvious facts, however, there’s also a fourth item that, unsurprisingly, was recently proven true in Vulture‘s recent feature about the person — or, people — who’s actually wearing the traditional beskar armaments. Yes, it’s Game of Thrones and Narcos actor Pedro Pascal, but not always.
As director Bryce Dallas Howard explained to the outlet, she never actually worked with Pascal on the set of her episode, “Sanctuary,” which was the fourth one released onto the Disney+ platform. “He was in rehearsals for King Lear on Broadway. And so, while we were doing my episode, I wasn’t working with Pedro,” she explained. So, instead of working with the guy who gets top billing on the series, Howard worked with stunt doubles/stand-ins Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder. Though as she put it, she mostly worked with Wayne, who just so happens to be John Wayne’s grandson.
“He absolutely just brought everything to that character, and we were able to find the moments and figure them out together,” said Howard.
Though as Wayne explained it during his own conversation with Vulture, this doesn’t mean that Pascal was shirking his duties. On the contrary, aside from voice the character, the two men were collaborating constantly “to develop the character’s onscreen movements”:
“[Pascal] would ask me, and I would ask him the same question, which is, ‘Why did you move like this during that moment?’ We would go back and forth,” Wayne said. “The great thing about him is he’s not impressed with himself. He’s just an actor. And I mean that in the good way, not the bad way. He likes to learn and he likes to collaborate and he’s very good at it.”
At least it’s not the same as James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films, for which neither Bradley Cooper nor Vin Diesel are actually on set doing mo-cap for Rocket and Groot. They don’t show up until it’s time to record their voiceovers. So, that’s cool.
(Via Vulture)
