EW spoke to 25-year-old Ivanna Sakhno where she opened up about playing the single-minded Shin Hati in Ahsoka, “She’s very calculated, she’s impatient, but she’s a seeker. She’s only in the beginning of finding her own voice.”
The interview was conducted before the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Sakhno is known for her roles in The Spy Who Dumped Me and the High Fidelity TV series, but Ahsoka is her biggest project yet. She spent months training with stunt coordinator Ming Qiu to perfect Shin’s brutal lightsaber style. Still, she says, her favorite days were when she got to film in the cockpit of Shin’s ship.
“The actual ship and a lot of the aspects of the physical world were built for the show,” Sakhno explains. “I do remember sitting inside of my [cockpit] and really [feeling like] my younger self as a kid, looking around. All the buttons are working, and you feel like it’s your childhood dream coming true. You really feel like a pilot in a ship. And you get to do this for a living.”
Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni also encouraged Sakhno to help craft Shin’s characterization and backstory, right down to specific hair and wardrobe choices. “He really cherishes the opinion of every person,” Sakhno adds. “Creating Shin, I just felt like my involvement mattered. Because she’s a new character, we got to create parts of her from the very beginning. With the costume and makeup, it felt like storytelling.”
Hear the entire interview on the latest episode of EW’s Star Wars podcast, Dagobah Dispatch. Watch the first four episodes of the Ahsoka series exclusively on Disney+ now, with new episodes arriving every Tuesday through to October 3rd at 6pm PT | 9pm ET.
