Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano, has spoken to ComicBook.com about what surprised her about Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, including a scene that made her break down in tears, as well as the possibility of her returning in The Bad Batch.
You’re back as Ahsoka Tano in Tales of the Jedi. You’ve played this character for a long time. What was your first reaction when they approached you about these shorts?
Ashley Eckstein: Oh, gosh. I was so excited because I had heard that these might be a possibility literally right at the beginning of COVID, right when the world shut down. And then as COVID dragged on, and I think we all wondered, “Is life ever going to get back to what it was before, I didn’t know if these would still be a possibility because we were all working from home, so we would have to record the show all from different places. I don’t know what their animation process was like, but I know in large part, a lot of people were still working from home. So when I eventually got the call that it was happening, I was just in disbelief and so excited. We did get to record together, but it was just via Zoom, but it was still so special to get the cast and crew back together.
I didn’t realize that this had been in the works for as long as it had been. How much did you know about what the project was when you first found out about it? Did you know it’d be a kind of flashback series, or did they just say, “Hey, we’re doing some shorts,” and that was it?
Oh, no. I only knew that Dave [Filoni] was writing a couple of shorts, so I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I didn’t know about the flashbacks and how it would tie in with the overall story. I just knew that he was writing a couple of shorts and that Ahsoka was a part of them. So that was all I knew, and that’s usually how he operates. He works on a need-to-know basis, so he only tells you what you need to know to get the job done. And then that’s it. Because with all the stories being told today, there’s so much confidentiality. It’s also good for us too, so we don’t spoil anything.
You’ve played Ahsoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. What’s different about these Ahsoka stories compared to what we got in those series?
What’s different about these shorts is that they’re snippets of time. They’re moments of time. They’re very important. If you look at it on the surface and just see like, “Oh, well this is just a short, this is a training exercise.” Oh no, it’s not that. I think fans are going to need to watch these episodes a couple of times, and they’re going to need to unpack them because they’re so many Easter eggs and hidden meanings and tie back to episodes that we’ve seen already. These shorts fill in the blanks for moments that we’ve previously seen and maybe wondered, “Oh, did that happen?” Or, “Where did she learn that?” These shorts are going to answer some questions.
I think the episode that you’re referring to “Practice Makes Perfect,” and it’s a great episode. I love the way it ties into the final season in the end. I feel like that’s one where fans may end up starting some discourse about the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka based on Anakin’s teaching style. What are your thoughts on that relationship and what that episode and Tales of the Jedireveal about it that maybe fans haven’t seen before, or may need to digest?
I think one of the things that people love about Ahsoka is just how skilled she is with her lightsabers. Some of the fans, their favorite moments are what we saw in “The Siege of Mandalore” and her fight with Darth Maul and how she escaped Order 66 and the Clones. People love those moments, but we’ve never explored how she became so good, how she became so skilled. And in fact, in the beginning, in the early days — and I feel like luckily people got off of this a little bit because what I really applauded that Dave and his team did was they showed her fail. They showed her make mistakes, which is really important. She wasn’t always perfect — but on the flip side, we did get some complaints in the beginning of, “Well, how is she so good? How is she saving Anakin?”
So I hope what fans will take away from the training exercise episode is they’ll see why she was so good. Because when you train like that, obviously that hones her skills. But also, Anakin is coming from a place of love. I mean, she was a 14-year-old girl when she first came into the Clone Wars. He was trying to save her. He knew that if he didn’t prepare her for war — I mean they were fighting a war. It was the Clone Wars — so if he didn’t prepare her for war, she would’ve died. And Anakin loves Ahsoka like a little sister.
I think it’s so funny, I didn’t think about it how you’re saying that it might cause some discourse, and I can see that now. I didn’t take it that way when I recorded it. It was very much like, “Oh wow. Yeah, Anakin was going to do everything possible to keep Ahsoka safe and put her in the best position possible.”
Did anything in Tales of the Jedi surprise you or take you unaware? Or do you feel like your understanding of this character is so solid at this point that it’s more just highlighting what you already know about the character?
I’ve never felt like I know everything with Ahsoka. There are always surprises. Even I was surprised by the training episode. I knew, obviously, because there were always allusions alluding to how much Anakin had trained Ahsoka. At the end of season three, when she survived the island with the kids where they were kidnapped by the Trandoshans, she told Anakin, “I survived because of what you taught me.”
I was surprised to see how intense the training was, but I wasn’t surprised that that training existed. I was pleasantly surprised that Ahsoka was at Padme’s funeral because I’d never thought about it before, whether she was there, but it makes sense that she was there because Ahsoka and Padme had such a deep friendship, one that I wish we could have explored more. Ahsoka really, really looked up to Padme like a sister, almost. I was very pleasantly surprised and happy to see that Ahsoka was there at her funeral and that she would honor Padme in that way.
The emotion in that episode, I only recorded that scene maybe three times. I was sobbing as I was recording it. The emotion just hit me, not only because of the moment and the realization that Ahsoka was there, and also what then was going through Ahsoka’s mind at that moment but then also, for me, I don’t ever take this for granted. It’s not like I finish one project and say, “Well what’s next?” I don’t look at it that way. I look at it rather with a sense of gratitude, of “Wow, I feel so grateful that I got to step into her boots again.”
But there’s always that twinge of sadness, like, “Well this could be goodbye to this character because I don’t expect to get to do it again.” I didn’t expect to be here from 2008 to 2022, still talking about new Ahsoka. So just like I think Ahsoka was saying goodbye to Padme and saying goodbye to her life, I was saying goodbye to Ahsoka.
I hope it’s just for now. Dave Filoni promised me I’d always be the voice of Ahsoka in animation, so you never know. I always hope it’s just for now, but I never expect that. So it was saying goodbye to Ahsoka and it was real tears. I mean, I was sobbing. It was the ugly cry with snot going everywhere. I’m anxious to hear the episode and see if you can hear the fact that I was an absolute mess in the recording studio.
What would you say are the odds of Ahsoka showing up in Star Wars: The Bad Batch?
Well, as I mentioned to you, Dave Filoni promised me I’d always be the voice of Ahsoka in animation, so I can say I haven’t recorded anything for The Bad Batch, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I talk about throwing your dreams out into the universe. So that would be absolutely incredible if Ahsoka ever made an appearance on Bad Batch. But I haven’t recorded anything.
Read more of the interview here, and watch all six episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi exclusively on Disney+ now.
Image: Getty Images
