The Mandalorian & Grogu: Pedro Pascal, Dave Filoni, And Jon Favreau Reflect On Din Djarin's Journey

What have I learned from Din? Everything, you know. I think that he's one of the earliest parents that I've ever gotten to play and he brings out my protective side. Hello. Hello, Ash. Hello, Pedro. Here we are. We're back again. Forever together in this galaxy. You and I. Feels like we never left. I don't know what we're doing. What do you mean? What do you mean you don't know what we're doing? You know exactly what we're doing. We're... A bit. We're loving on each other. Loving on each other. There's nothing wrong with that. I want to start with congratulating you on this movie. Thank you. It's amazing. And I want to start with what reached out to me in the opening credits, right? So it's Pedro Pascal, Lateef Crowder, Brennan Wayne. It takes a village to put The Mandalorian together. Could you talk a little bit about sharing that role with these two guys? Brennan Wayne was a stunt actor on Cowboys and Aliens, which was directed by Jon Favreau. So Jon Favreau brought him in from the very beginning. He's been a part of the physical authorship of The Mandalorian since day one. Lateef Crowder is one of the, if not the best, fight performers in the industry. I worked with him on Kingsman the Golden Circle, Triple Frontier. So when I saw him as part of this, I knew that we were in the best hands possible. I spent a lot of time in the suit with the helmet on and learned a lot about playing a scene with gesture, with posture. And it was a lot more interesting than you would think. There's been a lot of finessing that has happened with the suit to make it more comfortable for everybody. There are even more people than them, but they are the central, central authors of who this physical character is. One of my favorite things in the movie is singing single card credits for the both of them at the start. I thought that was really cool. You guys are like this... Trinity. Yes, the Trinity. There we go. That's the word I was looking for. I was telling Jon and Dave, it's so funny because when we were talking about at Star Wars Celebration Japan, that's when they introduced the idea of Rod of the Hut. And they were like, we're going to do a jacked, shredded hut, voiced by Jeremy Allen White. That sounds so funny. And then you love him. What did you remember about first hearing that? Well, Jeremy Allen White is a friend and I also think a brilliant actor. So again, Jon Favreau casting him, I remember just thinking he mentioned him to me and I just crossed my fingers that Jeremy would say yes and do it. So that his name could be in the credits as well and anything that I could be a part of. And Jon Favreau, he's done that with Sigourney Weaver. He's done it with casting across the board with this from the very, very beginning. He's brilliant. Leave me with a piece of life advice. Last time we did the meaning of life. Life advice? You want life advice from me? Always. Are you joking? I kind of live my life by what would Pedro do today? Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, how's it been going? Terribly. Exactly. So stop asking. What have you learned from Din Djarin here? What have you learned from Din? What have I learned from Din? Everything, you know? I think that he's one of the earliest parents that I've ever gotten to play. And he brings out my protective side. And a reminder of a value system that I think is important to have in life that isn't necessarily like a strict Mandalorian creed, but definitely do the right thing. Be good to others. Protect those that need protecting. You are the best. You're the best. Get the best outfit on. Your nails are amazing. You're bejeweled and bedazzled. Stop listening to me. Never. And live your life. Never. Hi, guys. Hi. How we doing? We're doing good. Big day for us. Big day. I'm so excited. I love the movie. I made too many notes. Oh, good. Yeah. I guess I want to start with just how accessible the movie is. I felt like I got those vibes I got from watching A New Hope or like the first act of Jedi. When you're looking at those things, like, were there any specific references you really wanted to make? What types of feelings were you looking to kind of emote out of me? There's so many different tones of Star Wars now in the last 49 years. And what you're learning is if it's well done, there's people appreciate all of them. And there's different groups, different ages that appreciate different things. We wanted to, for this, because it's the first time in almost seven years it's been on the big screen, for it to first of all be a celebration for fans to come in. Anybody who's seen the show, come on back and we're going to play the hits. It's going to be fun. For people who love Star Wars and didn't see the show, we want people to be able to come in. There's a lot in there for you too. You'll recognize a lot of things. But we especially felt like there's people, kids who could be like 12 years old now, who maybe seven years ago weren't old enough to go to the movies and see a Star Wars movie. It was too much for them. Let them come to the theater and see what Star Wars is like. It's great to watch on Disney Plus. The animation stuff is awesome. It brings a lot of people in. The Mandalorian's a fun thing to watch with your friends and family. But the thing that turned me into a fan was being in the audience by my dad's side, 10 years old, and the cheering and the reaction to the blockade runner and the Imperial cruiser passing over my head and how that shot never ended. And the crowd went from oohing and aahing to laughing to cheering. And when you're young, you're picking up on the energy, like a sports team, like when you go see a sports team that becomes your team for life. And so we wanted to make sure that we had that feeling and trying to emulate that tone and trying to emulate the feeling of you know who to root for, you know who these people are, but it's still a dangerous world and it could get a little scary and it could get a little funny. But ultimately, it has to be a hopeful story. And that's what we wanted to, I think, set out to do. Yeah, for sure. I mean, to me, it's like what? It's like family, heart, adventure, spectacle. It is a bit of Flash Gordon, if you know. People know what that is still. I mean, when you watch what George did, it's all of those things, and especially A New Hope. When it starts off, it's amazing how fast it's moving, how you're thrown into this galaxy, but you completely get it. And I think that it's always the template that you look at for how successful he was at connecting with people in this amazing galaxy he made. I remember when we talked at Star Wars Celebration, and I was like kind of laughing about it. I was like... Which one? You were there first. I know. I was just laughing at that. Oh, Japan. Oh, yeah. Gotta be more specific. I mean, that's a big deal. We've been working on this for eight years, and I think you were the first, right? Am I wrong? I remember they introduced me, and they're like, oh, she's... Early on. She does her stuff. Yeah, it was the premiere of the first movie, or the fan thing we did at the El Capitan. The El Cap, that's right. That was the biggest panel I'd ever done. I was so nervous. That was awesome. You were great. Thank you. But I remember at Celebration Japan, the most recent one, I was kind of laughing, being like, you got a jacked Rob of the Hood in here, voiced by Jeremy Ellen White. It sounds... That sounds like Mad Libs a little bit. It sounds absurd. And I... I love that people thought it was like, they're messing with us, because they thought we put a fake leak out, so that they'd make them print something that was fake, that we were messing with. They gotta be kidding. And no, and now you've seen it. And now I've seen it. I have so much to say about him that I won't say, but I'm just curious where the idea came from, where it'd be like, we're going to pull this character out, and also make us all very much fall in love with him. Oh, that's good to hear. First of all, it starts with Dave, with his first... With the Clone Wars. With the Clone Wars, yeah. But yeah. Okay. I learned about Stinky, because when Baby Yoda, when Grogu was first revealed, there was... Online, it was like, he's cool, but here's my favorite baby from Star Wars. And they would show pictures of little Rod of the Hunt. I saw the one you hand-painted. Well, then I... We took over with that. At Guillermo del Toro's house, I might say, and I was there, and we had a 3D print, and we were painting models. I painted that one and brought it in as reference. I paint a lot of stuff as reference. It's part of my way of work, studying the design. And we ended up replacing the CG one with the actual... Did you really? Oh, yeah, yeah. I didn't know you did that. And now they want to make a collectible figure out of it. I remember being with Henry Gilroy when he was writing Clone Wars, when we first started out, and he pitched this idea of this childhood, and I was like, okay, I don't know, maybe, sure, let's try that. And then years later, he comes in, he's pitching a baby Yoda, and I'm like, what is going on where I'm always somehow a conveyance for these child characters? It's working good for you. Of all the things, and we talk about so many things, what would be in Starz? What could we pick? What could we bring out? Like you were saying, the Ugnaughts, like take something. I never thought Radha would come up. I mean, I've often wondered about him and where he's gone on, but when you were like, hey, I think Radha, I think there's a thing here. I think Hutts are cool, first of all. Second of all, I like that it's like this underutilized character that's been floating out there. And I love the notion of what would Jabba's, what would it be really like to be Jabba's son? Like what's there to explore? You got to act like Jeremy Allen White, who's going to actually bring something, a little depth and thought to it. And then, of course, now we have three years to make a movie, not just 11 months or whatever for the TV show. We could design a character that could have Hal Hickel do animation and have it be, the technology has evolved so much. And if you have the time and you have the wonderful artists and a shared vision and the art department to help figure out exactly, just like with Grogu, you get a little bit wrong, it gets weird. You got to have to be just the right amount of weird for Star Wars, you know? But you go too far, you don't relate to the characters. You don't go enough, it's too cute. It's not, it's too- Well, true, because anytime Huts have become computer animated as opposed to giant puppet, fans have a lot of questions about it and they're very critical and rightfully so. And so, there was a lot, once there's the story idea and getting that right, but getting that physical nature right. And luckily, having someone like Hal and John Lowell and everybody looking at it all the time and Doug to work it out, we knew not just like crossing a room or just moving a little bit on Diaz, he's going to have to really be physical. And we've never seen that before. How does that even look? Does that even work? There were good illustrations from the comics with Gracchus, who is like a ripped Hutt. Yeah. So, that was- It's out there, yeah, as an idea. Yeah. I even started drawing it. I remember trying to work it out myself because I'm like, how do we do those things? Yeah, Guillermo had some thoughts. Guillermo was talking and thinking about ideas of Hutts that aren't all just these- So, it's been there, somewhere in the ether, this idea. And of course, you were the person that finally- Well, it's fun. ...scored the goal. And it's also like, here we can have a new adventure. If you saw Star Wars when I did, when I was a kid, you know Java and there's something kind of fun about that. It relates to the old stories, too. It also relates to, one thing that's cool about Dave is he sort of threaded all the different eras of Star Wars together. And I find people connect with the Star Wars that hit at the age when they're perfect to receive it. Yes, that's very true. And so, to be able to acknowledge all of them, as it's celebration, you feel it. Yeah. Everybody's walking around different ages. Everybody's from all different places, different countries. They're all having fun together. And I like when Star Wars feels like that. Very easy to feel that way in person. It's nice to try to bring everybody together with all the different stories. One of the strangest things about it when I watch the movie is I sit and look at Rod and I'm like, it's so weird that Ahsoka carried him when he was a baby, right? It's so weird that Anakin was around him. Was that before Baby Bjorn? So, do you invent the Baby Bjorn? Stop. I don't. No, I did not invent the Baby Bjorn. Isn't she carrying him in a... She has a backpack. But it's on the front, too, isn't it? I think she just carries him in the front. Yeah. When Ahsoka was a baby in the Tales of the Jedi, I think I had her... Ahsoka, I do. It's just all we have. We can do this for hours. We can go on and on. It's just the right platform. Yeah. This is the platform. I have to wrap. I have so many more questions. That's all right. We'll catch up. We're around. We will catch up. Let's save the rest for after dinner.