Empire Magazine’s April 2023 issue features brand new concept art of Grogu from season 3 of The Mandalorian, with him chasing down a group of scuttling, crab-like, rock-looking creatures.
While everything about Season 3 is being kept tightly under wraps, expect many more internet-breaking moments from Grogu in the coming episodes. “There will be things [in Season 3] that once again have people talking about Grogu,” confirms executive producer Rick Famuyiwa, cryptically. “In incremental ways, he’s growing as a character and in this partnership with Mando. As this relationship grows, Grogu has to become more central in things that are going on. He’s now firmly at the hip of Mando in every adventure…” One thing you can rely on? He’ll still be melting hearts, even while – as ever – raising a little hell. “The purity of the character brings out the best in the people round him. This next season continues to attach to that idea,” Famuyiwa states.
Inside the issue is a major new Grogu oral history, speaking to the people who made him and spanning his journey from page to screen. As well as talking to Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Rick Famuyiwa, plus star Pedro Pascal, we also spoke to Legacy effects founder John Rosengrant, who recalled Werner Herzog’s attachment to the on-set puppet. “He was worried that it was brain-dead at one point – the AD said, ‘Go ahead and shut it off, he’s off-camera as eyeliner for Werner’,” he says of the Season 1 shoot. “Werner got very concerned.” Plus, TaMara Carlson Woodard – the puppeteer and specialist costume design who created Grogu’s cloak, and helped flesh out the character from the initial concept art – looked back on the process of turning the concept art in a physical object. “I built a little body based off what I would want to hold, a little stuffed-animal version without a face,” she remembers. “I called it ‘Yermit’, because it wasn’t Yoda, and it wasn’t Kermit.”
Read Grogu’s oral history in the new issue of Empire, in a 20-page Star Wars special packed with interviews, never-before-seen images, fresh concept art, and much more. Empire’s April issue is on sale Thursday, February 16th, and you can pre-order a copy here.
Don’t miss the new season of The Mandalorian, streaming March 1st exclusively on Disney+.
Image: Empire
