After months of radio silence, the promotional campaign for The Mandalorian has kicked up several gears over the last couple of weeks. The premiere date was revealed along with a new logo – although, many suspect that was a deliberate move on Lucasfilm’s part to distract everyone from John Boyega’s criticism of Star Wars – then a batch of official images arrived, and the set was completed with the debut of the first trailer earlier this week.
From the outside looking in, everything seems to be pretty rosy surrounding Mando and Baby Yoda’s latest adventure, but there’ve been murmurings of behind the scenes discontent bubbling just below the surface for a while. It was rumored a few weeks back that the show had encountered some pretty serious problems and now, insider Grace Randolph has claimed that leading man Pedro Pascal left the production halfway through shooting.
According to her, Pascal had numerous disagreements with the creative team and went to the studio behind their backs to plead his case, which allegedly resulted in the former Game of Thrones star being given his marching orders.
“While filming Season 2 Pedro Pascal really wanted to have some scenes with his helmet off,” says Randolph. “The Mandalorian creative team wouldn’t budge on this. So Pedro Pascal, from what I’ve heard from two sources now, was frustrated about this and also was pretty darn uncomfortable in the Mando suit on set. So, he became difficult.
And the final straw, even though he was difficult to be around on set, the final straw was that he went to Lucasfilm, from what I’ve heard from my sources, to try and get them to intervene on his behalf. And you combine that with Lucasfilm already trying to get involved with story aspects of Season 2, which I’ve also heard. Including focusing more on standalone episodes rather than making them more connected, which I’ve heard The Mandalorian creative team wanted to do, which was kind of happening at the end of Season 1. So, when Pedro Pascal went to Lucasfilm, the Mando team was like, ‘You know what, you should just go’. And Pedro Pascal did. And that happened halfway through filming. Now, as I said, I’ve heard the break up was pretty bad with both sides upset.”
Randolph usually has a decent track record when it comes to the inside scoop on major franchise projects, but this one seems a little far-fetched. After all, Pascal surely would have known full well when he was first in talks to join The Mandalorian that he’d be required to keep his helmet on for the majority of his scenes, something he didn’t seem to have an issue with the last time out.
If it does turn out to be true, though, and Jon Favreau is keeping it under wraps, that could explain why season 2 is set to widen the scope to focus on other characters and subplots. Also, no offense to Pedro Pascal, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to replace him on The Mandalorian given that you could essentially have anyone under the costume and then hire a soundalike to do a voice-over in post production.
