Mary Elizabeth Winstead And Natasha Liu Bordizzo Explain How Hera Syndulla And Sabine Wren Will Be Depicted In The Upcoming ‘Ahsoka’ Series On Disney+
Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who play the live-action versions of Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren in the upcoming Ahsoka series, recently detailed how their characters will be depicted in the series.
Appearing on Entertainment Weekly’s Dagobah Dispatch alongside Rosario Dawson, Winstead first detailed how Hera’s history on Star Wars Rebels helped her, “I think having a character whose already existed and has such a rich history on something on Rebels, as an actor, it’s incredible because sometimes we’re tasked with creating our own backstories or trying to flesh out a character that doesn’t really have that much on the page.”
She added, “And so to play a character that just has season after season of storylines and complex histories with everyone in their life and relationships and experiences was really something — I’ve never experienced something quite like that. To have Rebels to refer to, and to have Dave [Filoni] to speak to about it every day on set, was a real luxury for sure.”
Winstead went on to describe how she sees Hera as she plays her in the upcoming Ahsoka series, “I see Hera as an incredibly strong but complicated person. I mean she is very maternal, but also she’s this leader of this crew. And as we see, she continues and becomes a general. And so she’s leading quite a lot of people and she’s become something of a legend in her own right.”
“But she’s also very soft and warm, and people come to her for advice, and solace, and comfort.,” Winstead continued. And I think seeing those things combined is very unusual, and something that I really wanted to play on screen, because that’s such an aspirational thing, I think, as a woman — or just a person — to be able to be all of those things in one.”
“And she’s certainly not perfect, but she does have all of those qualities that make her somebody that you can really kind of look up to in a way. And I like to try to be that on film because I don’t know that I quite live up to in reality, but it’s someone to try and try and reach for,” she concluded.
Bordizzo then detailed how Sabine Wren will be depicted, “She’s been through a lot and she’s still a stubborn cookie, but I think that you find her at the end of Rebels she was a huge part of the liberation of Lothal and many regard her as this hero, but she so does not feel that way about herself. She’s only thinking about the obligation she has towards her friend. So she’s got that mission in mind, not her hero status.
“And she’s got a huge journey to go on with Ahsoka. So we find her at the start of that,” Bordizzo concluded.
The official Ahsoka description states, “Set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka follows the former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.”
The emerging threat is more than likely Grand Admiral Thrawn given Filoni detailed that the character was the big bad of the New Republic Era in an interview with Empire Magazine.
He was asked, ““Do you see Thrawn as the big bad of this New Republic era? Is that how you’re positioning him?” Filoni responded, “Definitely, in my eyes. When Timothy Zahn wrote Heir To The Empire, Thrawn became this very iconic villain, because he was different than anything we’d seen before. He wasn’t another helmet-wearing, lightsaber-wielding bad guy, you know?”
The series is written by Dave Filoni who also executive produces the series alongside Jon Favreau, Kathleen Kennedy, Colin Wilson, and Carrie Beck. Karen Gilchrist is a co-executive producer.
The series is expected to arrive on Disney+ sometime in August 2023.
What do you make of Winstead and Bordizzo’s comments about how Hera and Sabine will be depicted in Ahsoka?
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