The Mandalorian star Katee Sackhoff reveals she had no idea Luke Skywalker was in the finale while filming. The Disney+ Star Wars show has already built up a reputation for delivering big surprises. The very first episode included the reveal of Baby Yoda, now officially known as Grogu. More surprises were in store for season 2, but Boba Fett's (Temuera Morrison) return and the live-action debuts of Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze were leaked before season 2 came out.
However, the end of The Mandalorian season 2 managed to deliver a huge surprise for Star Wars fans. The end of the episode featured a young Luke Skywalker, who came to find Grogu after the young padawan connected with Luke while on Tython. Outside of some questionable CGI to de-age Luke, The Mandalorian made a lot of viewers happy to see the character again and at the height of his powers. As surprising as it was for viewers to see Luke, it turns out not even all the actors were told what was really going on.
Sackhoff recently appeared on The Sith Council (via ComicBook) and was asked about Luke's appearance in The Mandalorian finale. This is where she revealed just how little she knew while filming, as she said, "I didn't know until I saw it with you guys." Sackhoff not knowing that it was Luke in this scene was because they filmed the scene without Mark Hamill there. She said an actor with dots on his face was there instead. But, Sackhoff did admit that she started to suspect this was supposed to be Luke as filming went on.
I mean, kind of. But at the same time, I thought to myself, 'They would have let us know that.' You know, they said… Who did they say it was? I think Robin [Gadsby] knew who they said it was, but it was a complete red herring. So we didn’t know. I knew it was a Jedi. I knew it was an X-Wing. So you start to put things together, but you don’t know.
Sackhoff presumably wasn't the only cast member on set for the final scenes who had no idea that the Jedi coming to take Grogu was indeed Luke Skywalker. It makes sense that she and others wouldn't know either. Not only was a different actor on set, but Luke wasn't in the finale's script. Luke's appearance was the biggest surprise of The Mandalorian season 2 and Favreau didn't want it to leak. By using Max Lloyd-Jones as a stand-in actor for the group scenes, the identity of the Jedi is a lot less clear to those involved than if Mark Hamill was standing in front of everyone.
That said, Sackhoff's comments don't completely line up with what Favreau said about how they pulled off Luke's appearance. He said that Hamill was on The Mandalorian set, but he couldn't have been there for the full scene without Sackhoff filming with him. It's possible that Hamill was brought to the set with a skeleton production crew and they filmed him by himself. At this point, it doesn't really matter how The Mandalorian pulled off Luke's surprise appearance, but the secrecy is clear. Now fans will have to wait and see if Luke returns in season 3 or further down the line.
Source: The Sith Council [via Comicbook]
