With The Mandalorian set to wind down in a couple of weeks, the wheel of fandom excitement slowly turns, as it always does, to the next big Star Wars thing. At Star Wars Celebration 2023, there was no doubt that the next big thing is Ahsoka, which sees Rosario Dawson take on the role of Anakin Skywalker’s (Hayden Christensen) former padawan, Ahsoka Tano, now all grown up, a warrior and rebel in her own right, and leading the search for Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).
As with everything Star Wars, the upcoming Disney+ series is shrouded in mystery, with the cast unable to say much about the plot or their arcs. That doesn’t mean, however, that the finer details of the story are not on their minds. In speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Dawson teased that there is a specific part of the story she is looking forward to more than most.
When asked which of the episodes for the upcoming season was her favorite, Dawson said “I mean, the first one really starts off really strong. I'll say I have a favorite.” Though she didn’t say any more than that, Dawson joked she was trying to be subtle and lay five fingers across her cheek, hinting that the series’ fifth episode was her favorite.
At the convention, producers Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau revealed just who fans could expect to see in the director’s chair for the upcoming series, with Filoni later revealing to Weintraub that he wrote all the episodes for Ahsoka himself. With all the episodes being handled by one creative voice, Dawson revealed the worst part of it all was having to wait between scripts to see what happens next:
“It was so painful. It was so exciting reading this and you know, getting that continuation of the story from Rebels and the surprises of so many of the different characters that were coming through, but also just like, so nice to deep dive into where they're at emotionally.”
Ahsoka’s Live Action Journey
This is not the first time the character has appeared in live action, showing up in an episode of The Mandalorian, and later in an episode of The Book of Boba Fett. Given the small role she played in those, however, Ahsoka represents for Dawson a chance to really dive into Ahsoka Tano’s long historyand her struggles along the way:
“I think you get to see like, that sacrifice that they're kind of still grappling with, and the vigilance that it takes for them to still know that there's a threat out there that they have to be on top of, you know, it's lonely business, you know what I mean? To kind of be out there fighting a threat that people don't even believe is real. And I think it's really exciting as we were kind of going along to see just how it was seeded and the context of it and the subtext of it.
For the fans who know and the fans who don't, it was just really nice, you know, this is a character who can be implacable almost, because she's so fierce and she's so capable. But you know, she's not finished with her journey. You know, she might be wiser, but she's not done. And so I think it was just really nice to kind of explore some of the tensions that exist there. You know, she's gone through a lot.”
Ahsoka stars Dawson alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Lars Mikkelsen, Eman Esfandi, Ray Stevenson and Ivanna Sakhno. It is set to premiere in August 2023. Check out the trailer below: