The most important aspect to a project like this
is the love of the world of Star Wars,
and to put that love into the storytelling.
We all love special effects and fireworks
and visual experiences that are incredible,
but what we care the most about is relationships and characters.
It's also taking a chance and certain risks
that have incredible rewards,
so that we can actually achieve something new.
It's truly an adventure.
A Star Wars adventure.
When we talked in the very beginning,
I was interested in working with you.
I mean, that was first.
But I always want to see the script, man.
I want to know, "What am I asked to do"?
'Cause people have their agendas
or they have their ways of seeing the world or...
As an actor, what you're really doing is, you're...
You're somehow endorsing
what someone wants to say about the world or in the world.
So I read the script, and I'm thinking, "Damn, man, this is really good".
"I really like what I'm reading".
So all that is the context, and when I walk there
and I look at the Mandalorian,
I know where this thing is going.
So now, it's for me to sell where this is going
through my character,
regardless of whether I can see his or her eyes.
There's something about the design of that whole thing with the Mandalorian
that has its own kind of mystery... It does.
We inherited that from George.
It's cool. George really borrowed Boba Fett
from Man With No Name, because if you think about it,
it still has that sort of breakdown of Eastwood's straight brim like that.
Just kind of over the eyes.
And the poncho over the shoulder and over the back,
and they put in a spur sound.
That was the gunfighter. Deconstructed gunfighter iconography.
Mandalorian isn't a race.
It's a Creed.
I love the opportunity to make him as human and as accessible as possible,
which is strange to say because it's impossible to get to him
'cause he's covered in armor from head to toe.
And yet, the idea is that, you know, he's relatable.
We're all kind of covered in our own armor and terrified of taking that armor off.
And that's the thing that crosses him over into a character
that we're all gonna really want to follow.
Have you ever removed your helmet?
No.
Has it ever been removed by others?
Never.
This is the Way.
Mandalorians, and as far as our Mandalorian is aware,
cannot reveal their faces.
Our Mandalorian subscribes to this.
If he ever reveals his face, he can never put his helmet back on again.
You know, he cannot be a Mandalorian anymore.
And he's wondering,
"Can I take off my helmet? Can I be at peace"?
I wonder what you look like under there.
Let's all see your eyes.
It is definitely a challenge
to try to really get the emotional complexity
or to get very nuanced performance
when, obviously, the main character
is in full armor and you can't see his face.
How do you convey that sense of connection to someone that we can't see his eyes?
I, as a storyteller and an audience member want to see that,
want to see what's behind the mask.
Working with, you know, the actor to use the physicality, so it's just...
Even just the littlest head turn, a lot of it was about stillness,
which was about, like, staying very, very still
when something significant happens,
so you can feel that everything stopped for a moment,
so when there's a gesture, it's a very meaningful gesture.
So we were trying to really sort of use the stillness of the character
so that any little gesture really meant something
and to try to have that to sort of show emotionally
how he's feeling and what he's thinking without being able to see his eyes.
When you have a character like that, you really sort of lean into his face more
because you want to get a peek inside of what's behind there.
So every bit of who he is becomes significant in a way.
And in some ways, as an audience, I think we're going to be looking
to sort of project our own emotions onto his experience.
I think it's in the eighth episode... Yeah, final episode.
When we slip the helmet off you. Like halfway through.
Just for a moment, goes back on.
I loved how you looked under it, because...
A mess. 'Cause when they...no, it is...
Well, there's that story.
What? Which one?
The trip to the hospital? Yeah.
It's very embarrassing.
I'm telling you, I have been in the most dangerous circumstances.
To sell all my previous employers out, I will tell you that none...
There were so many things that shouldn't have been happening for months at a time.
I was on tin roofs in ruins in South America.
I was like, "One little slip
"and I'm definitely done for the rest of my life".
I was like, "We kept... China for five months.
This way, he got hurt in his trailer. The Matthew Vaughn movies.
I stepped out of the makeup trailer looking at my sides
and walk into a piece of plywood. Yes.
Never gone to the hospital
from work before. The bad part was this.
He was made up because it was the scene after the explosion,
and he's bleeding out of his ears, he's covered with blood.
Yeah. Yes.
So what's the real blood and what's... So he goes
to the emergency room, they're like, "Let him in!"
"Look at his condition". They're like,
"This guy's at death's door".
I was sitting next to him in the makeup trailer
and they're adding blood, adding blood. And then...
I come right back in and blood's coming...
They call me for rehearsal, I come out and I'm like,
"Damn, they did a really good job. Like, this is so real".
And he was holding his nose.
You had to get stitches. I had seven stitches.
Seven stitches. It was so cool,
and this is, I think, pride points,
is you went to the hospital and came back.
Oh, please. You guys had moved. That was like a hockey player.
Come on. You guys moved. You went off the ice,
and came right back. You moved...
It was awesome. You moved mountains.
A puck to the head, came back... You moved mountains,
I couldn't get from the makeup trailer to a rehearsal.
What was good, though, is that the scene was about somebody who...
So it was perfect. Injured. It was perfect.
You were really in it. Method.
You were really in it.
I would be bragging about that story. That's amazing.
Yeah. Great story.
Can I just comment on the helmet thing, though?
Oh, yeah.
I found it really a challenge.
When you're across from somebody, they're throwing
body language at you. Yes.
And these two things here... Sure.
You can be saying one thing,
but these two things tell me something different.
And I'm responding to what you're throwing.
You're hitting the ball this way... Right.
Whatever it's doing, I have to adjust for it.
And that helmet... It's a mask.
Yeah. It is flat.
There is nothing.
So you have to...
I have to listen so acutely to the voice
and hope that that voice is gonna cue me to what this person is.
Not just the words,
but what they're really saying under it. Yes, yes.
And it's a challenge.
It makes you focus even more and concentrate even more
and become even more still, if that's possible.
You become a hummingbird. It's like, "Okay, you better go to work".
I am third fiddle to two incredible guys, Brendan Wayne and Lateef.
I'm modeling my performance around their physicality in a lot of ways.
And I wouldn't be able to do it without them.
Brendan knows how to handle a gun,
so the gunslinger aspect of the Mandalorian
is taken care of on that side.
I got to pull guns.
I got to shoot guns. I got to shoot grappling hooks.
It's fun. It's fun.
And then we have Lateef Crowder,
who is our Capoeira, Jujitsu warrior who can basically do anything.
You know, the secret is to always be ready.
I'm always training. Whether it's martial arts,
whether it's stunt training,
whether it's weight training, just physical fitness.
Always got to stay ready and just be ready to adapt.
I'm a Mandalorian.
Thanks, guys. That's a wrap for us as well.
You worked with three different people. Yeah.
They're all the same mask.
But I know on film I can tell slightly the difference.
Not just from the...could you tell the difference with each one?
I could... All felt like the Mandalorian?
'Cause it comes off on film...
All as one? Yeah, it feels...
Yeah, yeah. So for me,
you all brought the physicality, the incredible acting,
and the brotherhood that I had in the other one.
So it was kind of you all make up
the Mandalorian for me. Right.
And, um, I have such a good connection with all of you guys.
You're very smart with your choices, and you know what's going on in the scene.
And a lot of emotion has to come through, just the voice.
I can bring you in warm...
Or I can bring you in cold.
I think that's perfect.
It's interesting doing voice-over.
We get to really improvise our way through it.
Lower your blaster.
Have them lower theirs.
I'm in the Guild!
Me and Jon and Dave doing some rewriting on the spot
and finessing to get it right. Boom!
I want my next job.
Do a round of this one, and we'll jump to that scene.
Wait. Just wait.
The trick with this episode is for us to plant the seed
so that when you change your mind, it feels earned.
This is the Way.
That's good. That one's really good. Yeah, that's great.
We never talked about your career as a professional fighter.
So I just knew you...
I liked you from Haywire. I liked your other work, Deadpool.
We know Soderbergh through the Guild.
He's got really good taste.
I was like, "He picked you out and got you"?
And then...great job.
And I was like, "She could be good for this part".
Then I just started watching tape on you, and you remember, it wasn't an audition.
No. It was a phone call.
Thank God, because I don't know...
I'm starting to get better at auditions.
You were in the story illustrations
within my first meeting with these guys.
That was... In the room of pictures.
And I don't know if they had spoken to you yet, but you were in it.
I trust my...yeah. And they were like,
"I don't know if you know".
I said, "Gina Carano from Haywire".
Oh, my gosh. Absolutely.
Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm completely, like, overwhelmed by...
Because I don't feel like the regular actress,
and I don't think I'm ever gonna be very Hollywood.
So I just feel like the people that find me,
like you, Soderbergh, are people that, um...
See a little bit of your soul? Yes, thank you for that.
I, for this job, physically...
I was myself.
Jon wanted to put a woman that looks like she can take care of business in armor,
and he actually, through this job, has helped me learn to love what I am.
I think when everybody realized I was strong...
was a scene where I have to pick up Mando,
and I have to drag him into the common house.
And I went out there, and I got behind him,
and I picked him up from behind and I drug him in.
When she is carrying Mando,
she really carried him. That wasn't a stunt double.
That was Gina just strong-arming him and just dragging him across that.
It was crazy.
It's awesome being a young woman in this industry
and seeing other women being portrayed in a really heroic, badass light.
Gina is a perfect example of that.
Gina lights up when she is doing the action stuff.
Like, you can tell she loves being that character in this world.
And also, her expressions when she's in those fight scenes,
that's not easy to do. Yes.
The way she takes a hit, that's what made Harrison Ford a star,
he knew how to take a punch as Indiana Jones.
His hand would hurt when he punched.
He was very human. He didn't play it like a superhero.
He played it vulnerable, and you experienced it through his eyes.
And I think Gina, also partially 'cause of her background, right?
She's actually punched people, and she's been punched.
And I think that's a huge difference.
Like, I mean, it's like when you see...
When you're doing a fight scene and you actually haven't experienced that,
it's like you're just at a huge disadvantage.
And she is, you know, she was a professional fighter for so many years.
I love it, too, 'cause it's...you know...
George Lucas was referencing an older generation.
You know, he was a baby boomer,
he was referencing the Greatest Generations films.
So he was referencing World War II films and the movies he grew up with.
And he...
And the way he would treat action was the way that those films treated action.
The way they would cast action heroes back then
would be people who really, like...
Especially with Westerns, they would go at Gower Gulch.
There'd be real cowboys, and people
who really knew how to ride and rope, knew how to fight and knew how to shoot.
And it was all very authentic.
That's how people became movie stars sometimes.
They were people who actually had that background.
It's almost like what we do with martial arts now, those films,
that people become actors out of that skill-set.
So having her there, it was a bit of a throwback to me.
And to me, there's so much...there's so...
I don't know, there's something so relatable about her in that role,
and she's playing the type of role that I would have...
The type of action figure I'd have wanted the most.
Cara Dune here was a veteran.
She was a drop soldier for the Rebellion,
and she's gonna lay out a plan for you, so listen carefully.
Open fire.
When it came to the costume and the look and everything,
Kathy Kennedy said,
"The thing about Star Wars characters, they always have a silhouette".
You can see them from a distance, and you know who they are.
You know if Han Solo is walking towards you
versus Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Hello there.
You just know the difference 'cause there's a silhouette.
And you see Gina 50 feet away and she's back-lit, and you know it's her.
She looks like a warrior.
There's no other way to put it. She looks like a warrior.
Cara is an ex-shock trooper.
She comes from the planet Alderaan,
which is a very peaceful planet, and it obviously gets blown up.
So she left there,
so she was a bit of a different character on her planet.
She was the rebellious one.
She was like, "I'm interested in war and fighting.
"Interested in things that get your adrenaline going".
I feel like this is the first time
I've actually, like, genuinely gotten into character.
Come to Mama.
There's a certain way that you carry your body.
There's a certain way that you play...a certain confidence you hold.
So many actors show that they're tough.
Tough people that I know
don't show they're tough. They know that they're tough.
And then the status comes out just through the attitude.
And that comes from knowing that you've been in situations
and you've handled it, you know.
I know 'cause I can see it 'cause I'm not that way.
I know that I'm not.
Let's talk about the other side of the spectrum.
Wait, you are... So, Pedro...
Let's talk about the dorks that get the gig.
Wait, can I just say something about...Carl was, uh...Jon...
I don't know. The emotional intelligence...
I feel like you get the way I think and feel,
what I've been through in my career without...
I've never even had dinner with you. We've just met in these office buildings.
We've been working a lot together. That.
You spend a lot of time here.
You really get it. There's a genius in that.
I completely, 100% believe that.
He would tell me, when Carl was on film, he would bring me back,
and every time I needed to see something and be educated of something,
he'd be like, "Come here. Let me show you something.
"Listen to him. Watch him.
"He is a superstar. This is what a superstar is.
"Listen to his voice, listen to the way..."
When he turns it on, it is so incredible.
It was so beautiful to watch you, Carl. Your voice is...
I mean, your voice is so powerful and so beautiful,
it just sounds like a song, everybody can hear it in the room.
And we all looked around and thought to ourselves,
"That is a superstar".
And you have been a superstar, and I'm so honored
to have those scenes with you. Good Lord. Thank you, Gina.
I, for one, I celebrate your success.
Because it is my success as well.
There's something about this character
that reminds me of a combination of John Huston and Orson Welles.
There is this largess about him,
there is this commanding sort of presence about him
that he doesn't try to do, but that's just who he is.
When he walks into a space, not a room, any space, he fills that space.
How do I know I can trust you?
Because I'm your only hope.
You can paint a character as an antagonist, as the bad guy,
and I've never approached roles that way, ever.
I find tremendous flaws in human beings.
And at times, those flaws can lead a person astray,
lead them to the dark side.
So the story of Greef is that he is tempted.
Carl Weathers is somebody that you just love to see and love to watch,
because he commands presence.
And he taught me a lot about that just by watching it.
And he'd also tell me on the side, you know...
I remember one time I couldn't get something right,
and I was just, like, you know, kind of upset with myself.
And he was reading a paper, and he was like, "Happens to all of us".
I was like, "All right, yup, I'm over it now. Like, thanks, Carl".
Um...
But just a precious, precious human.
Carl wasn't supposed to be in the whole show.
Carl was in episode one and then got knocked off in episode three.
Three, yeah. He got knocked off?
I didn't know. Originally.
He was gonna be in full prosthetics...
Yeah. As a different alien race.
Yup. And then we switched it up,
and after he did it...
It was a favor. I said, "Come in and do this one..."
He said, "Fine. I don't really act much more, but fine".
So Carl's supposed to come in, he's gonna be in 101 and then 103...
Out. He gets shot, he's out.
So, "Okay, I'll do it as a favor".
Then we start seeing that it's him... But then he came in and talked,
and we were like, "How can we cover his face"?
So the first thing was, he can't be an alien.
Yeah, no way. Come on.
Like, how you gonna cover that?
'Cause they did a drawing with Carl with the makeup on, and I'm like...
I said to Carl, I said, "We can't cover you up".
He's like, "I figured as much".
He didn't even...
Look, man, I was...the reason why...
I'll tell you why I went with it.
I went with it because there was no reason to argue yet.
I thought, "Okay, let's try it, man.
"I've never done it before, it sounds good to me".
But then, I swear to God, I walk away and I'm thinking,
"Okay, why would you do that"?
Because people are gonna tune in if you got the name.
Why not have the face? Yep.
It's like, "Come on. You take it off eventually, right"?
Well... Can you imagine...
In their well-researched sort of casting investigation,
they were like... Hey, man.
"People are really ready to stop looking at this guy".
There it is. "Put a helmet on his head".
Doesn't work that way. We thought,
"Who would be cool with a great voice"? And then you start to say, "Well, look".
we start talking in a meeting with him, it's like,
Carl, we gotta have him on camera.
He belongs... I'm so happy.
He feels like... That camera test moment
where you and I were shooting some stuff, and we were testing the cameras,
and then we had a couple people in big masks and different prosthetics,
we were trying... You were there.
Some simple directing for it in a scene,
and it was set up in the bar, I was sitting there, and I was nervous.
He had never directed. Never directed live action.
This was a test.
He's like, "Okay, go ahead. You go. You go, you go do it".
It's a guy with four eyes and a giant mask, and he can't see.
He's bobbling. I go up... We had somebody wearing the Mando...
You came, but you weren't in the test. Yeah.
I'm trying to give a little direction, and I'm thinking,
"Okay, I got to set this up right 'cause Jon's watching".
I give the direction, "I want you to be here".
and, "You're cutting the drink off, okay. You got it, you got it".
And the guy is, like, in the mask like this.
And I'm like, "Oh, my God, what is happening"?
And I'm thinking, like, "I could draw this so much faster.
"I could draw this. Why am I doing this"?
We watched on the monitor. Watched on the monitor,
and coach watches it, and he's like, "Okay, okay".
He goes, "Okay, let me go".
So he goes in. Now the first team goes in.
You know, the punt team came off. First team goes in.
He goes direct, he comes back, and he's, "Okay, watch".
And we watch it. It was better, but it wasn't great.
It was still clunky. We're sitting there like,
"Maybe these masks are a big mistake".
We were like, "They can't see, can't do anything".
They couldn't see, couldn't do anything. We're like,
"We sold everybody on this vision". Yeah.
Then we're doing the scene, I'm like...
It's good that we...
A blessing we get to see this thing.
We couldn't even get Mando
to sit down in the booth because of his gear.
And like, he's got the armor on and the hip pads,
he tries to sit...
It was a prototype costume. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.
I'm just like, "In animation,
"he'd glide". I'll tell you.
Remember now, when he showed up,
put the helmet... It fit.
And it was like... Yeah, then I relaxed.
It was like butter. Then I relaxed.
When you have someone...
So the trick is, it's not just people... Yeah.
In costumes that you guide around.
Whoever's in there, has to be an actor.
Yeah.