What We Learned from "Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian" - Episode 3: "Cast"

Hello and welcome to Laughing Place’s weekly recap of the behind-the-scenes docuseries Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian on Disney+.

This week’s new episode of the series is entitled “Cast,” and features interviews with actors Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, and Carl Weathers as well as a roundtable discussion with creator/showrunner Jon Favreau and executive producer/director Dave Filoni as they navigate the process of making the first-ever live-action Star Wars television series. Below is a list of the most interesting tidbits and factoids we learned during this installment.

The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal (Din Djarin) says the most important aspect to a project like this is the love of Star Wars.
Carl Weathers (Greef Carga) was interested in working with series creator Jon Favreau, but he also asked to see the script before agreeing to join the cast.
Favreau reminds us that the character and design of Boba Fett were inspired by Clint Eastwood’s The Man with No Name.
The show’s directors discuss how difficult it is to elicit emotion from a character who always wears a mask. Deborah Chow used stillness to convey significance.
Pascal went to the hospital after accidentally walking into a plank of wood right before shooting the scene where Djarin’s helmet is removed, but the injury and resultant stitches only added to the appropriate look.
Pascal also acknowledges that he plays “third fiddle” to two stand-in stunt doubles for his character– one who serves as a weapons expert (Brendan Wayne) and one who practices martial arts (Lateef Crowder).
Pascal would improvise and help Favreau and executive producer Dave Filoni rewrite Djarin’s lines during post-production dialogue recording sessions.

Having come from a career as a professional MMA fighter, Gina Carano (Cara Dune) brought genuine combat experience to her role.
The role of Dune was written with Carano in mind based on her performance in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. Concept art using her likeness was already present when Pascal came in for his first meeting.
Carano is so strong she was able to pick up the Mandalorian on her own.
Carl Weathers says he never thinks of an antagonist as a villain, but that every is subject to human flaws and temptations.
Greef Carga was initially intended to be an alien character, but Favreau and Filoni ultimately decided not to put Weathers’ face behind prosthetics. He was also originally supposed to die in the third episode.
Filoni and Favreau did camera tests and couldn’t get the stand-in wearing the Mandalorian costume to move correctly or sit correctly because of the bulkiness of the armor and helmet. Besides having to redesign the suit, they learned that the person inhabiting it had to be an actor.

The first three episodes of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian are now available to stream exclusively on Disney+.

Next week: “Technology”