New details and thrilling announcements were revealed to a rapturous Star Wars Celebration crown at last weekend's event in London, with the panel for the upcoming Disney+ series Ahsoka arguably stealing the entire event, following a show-stopping showcase and teaser trailer. The biggest cheer of the panel was saved for the reveal of Lars Mikkelsen's Grand Admiral Thrawn, the iconic villain from the original Star Wars Extended Universe.

Thrawn, of course, is not the only antagonist to be featured in Ahsoka, with Ray Stevenson and Ivanna Sakhno also set to battle the title character - as shown in the trailer - but they may not all be on the same page, as teased by Stevenson himself, when he met up with Collider's editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub in the interview room following the Ahsoka panel. Stevenson was giving nothing away on the topic of Baylan Skoll's relationship with the infamous Grand Admiral, although reading between the lines, one feels the actor was saying everything by saying nothing with his response.

Laughing dryly and rolling his eyes, when asked about Thrawn being 'the smartest man in the room', Stevenson responded by saying, “According to him. Well, he might be right. He’s a smart guy," before adding a simple "yes" when asked if the relationship was adversarial or friendly.

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Image via Disney+

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Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Why Is He So Important?

Thrawn was first brought into the Star Wars universe in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, which was the first piece of major media from Star Wars released in eight years. He is a blue-skinned Chiss from the Unknown Regions of the galaxy who worked his way through the ranks of the Imperial Navy under Emperor Palpatine, before becoming the best strategic military mind of the Empire, and then ultimately taking over the position of de-facto head of the Empire from the (temporarily) deceased Palpatine following his demise at the hands of Darth Vader.

Thrawn was thought to be no more, his history wiped out, when Disney acquired Lucasfilm, and decided to scrap the canon which had been established and built up by the novels that followed Return of the Jedi in the long period of Star Wars silence between 1983 and 1999's The Phantom Menace, but Dave Filoni rescued Thrawn, adding him as a major antagonist in the final two seasons of the animated series Star Wars Rebels, set before A New Hope in the earliest days of the Rebel Alliance.

Ahsoka is slated for an August 2023 premiere on Disney+. You can see the thrilling teaser trailer, which first premiered at Star Wars Celebration, down below.