The Book of Boba Fett director and showrunner Robert Rodriguez takes TheHollywoodReporter.com inside Disney+’s ultra-secretive new Mandalorian spinoff: “We couldn’t believe what we got to do.”
Fett finally was resurrected in The Mandalorian season two episode “The Tragedy,” with New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison (who portrayed Fett’s father, Jango, in the Star Warsprequels) reprising the role. Favreau approached his longtime friend Rodriguez to direct the key episode. “He crushed it,” Favreau says. “We loved his interpretation of the character, and I pitched him and the studio the idea of doing more.”
For the 53-year-old Rodriguez, a longtime Star Wars fan, the experience was like being inducted into the Jedi Order. “I can’t even say this is a dream come true because I wouldn’t have even thought to dream this,” Rodriguez says during a sit-down at his Troublemaker Studios in Austin. The Alita: Battle Angel and Sin City director is arguably a perfect fit for Favreau and Filoni’s Star Wars hub, even though the devoutly independent filmmaker says he normally doesn’t like to get involved with franchises unless they’re his creation (such as his four Spy Kids films).
“I usually avoid premier properties — you’ll never be able to please everybody, it’s a losing game,” Rodriguez says. “I’d rather go do something I’ve created so nobody can say, ‘Hey, that’s wrong because …’ I created it, so it can be anything I want it to be. I love that freedom. That changed with Boba because he was a character that was always underserved. It was a character way more popular than he should have been, based on [his limited screen time]. So it’s almost like starting with an original character. You can kind of do anything you want, so long as you make him cool and don’t make him a buffoon.”
Filoni, who headed the acclaimed The Clone Wars animated series, has a theory as to why fans have remained fascinated with Fett despite him having only six minutes of screen time in the original trilogy. “I think the design of the costume, especially the helmet, is iconic,” he says. “The details, from the dent on the crown of the helmet, the emblems, scuff marks, cloak and braids all spoke of a greater story and adventure that the character had experienced. I think it was always fun to imagine what those adventures were. Now we get to tell some of them.”
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If the Book of Boba Fett teaser trailers released so far seem a bit less than epic, it’s due to a deliberate act of restraint: The producers have only revealed footage from the seven-episode season’s opening minutes. “We can’t use the second half of the first episode because it gives so much away,” Rodriguez says. But the basics are that Boba and his assassin partner Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) have taken over Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine, a move that sends them on a journey into the previously unseen Star Warsunderworld of crime families.
“Boba gives us a direct connection to the Star Wars saga since he was involved in that story,” Filoni says. “This creates a nice crossover point for both classic characters and new characters. Much of The Mandalorian was new, or had not been seen onscreen. Through Boba Fett, we can weave some of those characters and tales together using a character we know but don’t know a lot about.”
Rodriguez adds that the character specifically “invites a whole world from the underworld in with him.
“Things turn up you don’t expect, you see things we couldn’t believe we got to do,” he says. “Every episode has big surprises.”
The producers’ hints combine to suggest some familiar faces (or helmets) might be showing up, especially if the series not only flashes back to how Fett escaped the Sarlacc pit, as fans hope, but, just perhaps, to other moments during Fett’s unseen time during the original trilogy-era as well.
The Book of Boba Fett is unusual for a franchise action series in that it stars a 60-year-old (Morrison) and a 58-year-old (Wen, who somehow looks like she still gets carded in bars). “You never feel like they’re an older cast; they’re so youthful and energized,” Rodriguez says. “Tem and I work out together — he really is Boba Fett. And for Wen, I would design whole sequences just to end on her and the look she would give Boba because she’s so badass. Tem knows this is his moment and she knows this is her moment, and when you get actors like that, they go for it and it’s palpable.”
Adds Filoni: “Tem brings the intensity and sense of weathered experience that a well-traveled bounty hunter needs while maintaining a sense of fun and adventure. He had more dialogue than Fett has ever had to deliver, but it’s also a very physical role, and Tem was there for it, training and enduring a lot of action.”
Wen’s character was introduced in the first season of Mandalorian and then was seemingly killed off. “There was no ‘seemingly,’” she says with a laugh. “It was very clear at the time.” But Favreau and Filoni had a change of heart and decided to concoct a storyline whereby Boba revived Fennec and the duo teamed up. When Wen made her deal to return, she thought she was simply signing on to more Mandalorian. “They’re so secretive that when dealing with the contracts, there isn’t even a title for the show; it’s all under pseudonym,” she says. “I naturally assumed I was doing Mandalorian season three until I showed up on set.” Wen adds that the spinoff feels more gritty than the other series. “We’ve always dealt with the Empire and the Jedis; this was about these gangster families and has a rawness to it,” she says. “It’s quite different from The Mandalorian, which is more like a Western.”
Part of the show’s challenge will be distinguishing Fett from Disney+’s other stoic, helmeted bounty hunter. Mando was a character inspired by Boba Fett without technically being Boba Fett, right down to Mando freezing his captured fugitives in carbonite. One difference will come as a bit of a relief: Unlike Mando, whose creed mandates that he conceal his identity, Fett doesn’t seem to have any particular qualms about removing his helmet, freeing the spinoff from the flagship series’ oft-frustrating insistence on hiding star Pedro Pascal’s face.
Rodriguez also points out that Fett’s scant prior screen time leaves a lot of wiggle room for invention. The filmmakers seized onto King Conan and The Godfather as specific inspirations. “Boba bites off more than he can chew, and we definitely do not make it easy for him,” Rodriguez says. “It’s easy to sit on the throne; it’s not easy to stay on. So what’s it like for a bounty hunter to have to suddenly become a leader? Where’s the push and pull in that? What is he trying to become? We really go in depth into the character.”
Read the interview in full here. The Book of Boba Fett steams on Disney+ starting December 29th.
