The Mandalorian’s Katee Sackhoff on Bo-Katan, Grogu, and Din

Everyone’s infatuated with Baby Yoda, aka Grogu, the tiny alien creature who’s being raised by “The Mandalorian”‘s title hero, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal). And that features the toddler daughter of Katee Sackhoff, who performs Bo-Katan on the present (and within the “Clone Wars” and “Rebels” animated collection). Sackhoff talks to POPSUGAR about her daughter’s over-the-top love of Grogu, working with Pascal, and Bo-Katan’s journey in season three.

Sackhoff shares 15-month-old Ginevra Grace along with her husband, Robin Gadsby. She’s a bit younger to start out her official Star Wars viewing journey, however Sackhoff plans to indicate her the very first film when she will be able to. “But on the identical time, I believe she’s going to observe this present. She’s already obsessive about Baby Yoda,” she explains. “She has a bit Star Wars pop-up e book as a result of I used to be like, ‘Well, I ought to begin her.’ So she flips by way of the cardboard e book, and she loves it.”

But her daughter’s different favourite character, she confesses, is a bit more odd: the villainous Darth Maul, who made his devious debut in 1999’s “The Phantom Menace.” “She hugs and kisses him. It’s a bit unnerving,” she says. “Then she flips proper to Yoda and then she goes and grabs her child Grogu doll and hugs him.” Her daughter additionally has a Star Wars pillow with a repeating sample of characters, and she likes to level on the creatures and determine them. “She thinks it is just like the funniest factor ever. And she hugs her pillow. I’m beginning her younger,” Sackhoff says. “She’s a bit blue-eyed, like, strawberry-blond-haired woman that is like obsessive about Darth Maul. It’s nice.”

Of course, Sackhoff additionally loves Grogu and filming scenes with the puppet on set. “I believe that working with him, primary, is wonderful as a result of working with the puppeteers is magical,” she explains. “They are so extremely gifted, and we’re so fortunate to have them. The approach that they management Grogu brings out actual emotion that you’d have for an animal like a canine.”

Sackhoff additionally praises her nonpuppet costars, together with Pascal. “Pedro’s wonderful. I like the entire success that’s coming to him. It’s so good to see,” she says. “The days that I get to work with Pedro are a lot enjoyable, and I simply cherish them.” She provides that “The Mandalorian” may be very a lot a group effort: Din is played by two other actors moreover Pascal, and Sackhoff credit the stunt individuals who convey Bo-Katan to life, too. “There are a number of wonderful girls that had been on this go well with this 12 months that deserve credit score for it,” she says. “There are some phenomenal stunt work that go into this character to make her look as plausible as she is.” Everyone on set, she says, is aware of what all of the others are bringing, so it is an actual collaboration with “no ego concerned.”

Din and Bo-Katan’s onscreen interactions have been heated, however they’re each introduced collectively by Grogu. “She is aware of he is vital. She’s not going to let him get harm,” Sackhoff says of Bo-Katan’s relationship to Grogu. In episode two, Grogu goes to her for assist after Din is captured on Mandalore. Sackhoff says Bo’s rescue mission is partially as a result of she feels responsible telling Din to journey there to start with. “She dismissed him, and now he is in bother. And I believe that the very last thing that Bo needs to be is accountable for the demise of one other Mandalorian,” she explains.

The season three model of Bo-Katan is “a unique Bo than we have seen earlier than,” Sackhoff says. “She’s hit all-time low. She’s alone. She’s misplaced every thing. She has lost her people and her household and her sister and every thing. And I believe that she is actually reevaluating every thing, each transfer she’s ever made as much as that time, that put her within the place that she’s in.”

This season, Sackhoff says, “She has nothing to lose. . . . She’s alongside for the experience with Din and Grogu as a result of she was alone and now she’s not.”

That leads us to the top of episode three, the place Bo joins the Children of the Watch with Din, a gaggle she’s beforehand derided as a cult. Fans on-line joked that Bo-Katan in all probability did not imply to hitch the group, however Sackhoff rejects that interpretation.

“The one factor Bo is at all times going to be is calculated. She’s at all times going to take a look at her environment. She’s at all times going to know her exit plan. She’s at all times going to know or be interested by what it means to remain,” she says, including that the one place Bo-Katan has to reside was simply destroyed. “She’s nowhere to go,” she says. “And these individuals have actually simply accepted her. I imply, is the worst factor staying for dinner? I do not know. She’s in all probability hungry.”

Sackhoff is tight-lipped on the subject of spoilers, and she’s had some apply because of her mother, who at all times asks what is going to occur subsequent. “She would not like surprises, however I do not inform her something,” she says. “So she’s like, ‘Well, does blah, blah, blah occur?’ I’m like, ‘Mom, I’m not telling you.’ She’s like, ‘Oh, Katee, I will not inform anybody.’ And I used to be like, ‘I’m not doing it as a result of I believe you are going to inform individuals. I’m doing it so you will get pleasure from it.'”

New episodes of “The Mandalorian” stream Wednesdays on Disney+.