Emily Swallow (the Armorer) on the challenges of wearing Mandalorian armor

The Mandalorian is one of the most gripping shows on TV right now, which is doubly impressive because we never even get to see the main character’s face. He’s a Mandalorian, part of a warrior tribe who’s members wear helmets all the time. That includes the Armorer (Emily Swallow), a mysterious character who creates armor and weapons for her fellow Mandalorians.

First things first: are you wondering what the Armorer looks like under there? Here:

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 13: Emily Swallow arrives at the premiere of Lucasfilm’s first-ever, live-action series, “The Mandalorian,” at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. on November 13, 2019. “The Mandalorian” streams exclusively on Disney+. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

“I’m relieved to see that it looks a lot better than it felt,” Swallow said of the helmet to Digital Spy. “I hope at some point, they release a bloopers reel, because when you get a couple of Mandalorians in a room together in that armour and in those helmets, it can get ridiculous! You’ve no peripheral vision and you can’t see down, so you’re kind of wandering around in blind faith that you’re not going to trip or run into somebody. And we discovered early on that every single movement is magnified because of how much focus the armour and the masks draw. So you can’t really have any extraneous movement.”

"I was glad that the Armorer is a very deliberate character and she moves slowly. It gave me time to kind of just breathe and settle and be very mindful of how I was moving, because a little bit of movement communicated a lot. I really hope at some point we get to see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, because it was hilarious when we were trying to navigate the space together."

I barely even remember the Armorer getting up from her work bench. But of course it makes sense that Mandalorian-style helmets would be impracticable in everyday life, even if they look really cool onscreen. (You know a lot of people are going to find that out the hard when when Halloween rolls around.) Hopefully they all have advanced heads-up displays in there; otherwise they’d all be bumping into each other all the time.

And yes, Disney, please release that blooper reel.

Anyway, once Swallow was able to get her bearings inside the costume, she was able to appreciate just what kind of show she was on. “It was so cool just walking onto the set and seeing the incredible thoughtfulness that was put into every single set-piece and every single prop,” she said. “All the weapons that my character uses were just created with such care. And it felt like everyone that was involved just had this incredible love and this incredible respect for the Star Wars universe.”

"One of the first days I was on set, shooting the first episode, George Lucas actually came to visit. He was coming to surprise [The Mandalorian creator] Jon Favreau for his birthday. And everyone who was around that day just hung out for a while and listened to him tell stories. It really did feel like we were part of this incredible lineage of these beautiful and fantastical stories that he created decades ago and that persist because of the heart of them. There are so many characters in the Star Wars universe that we fell in love with and that keep drawing us back in. No matter what the technology, no matter what the new villains are, George Lucas really created something enduring. And so to be a part of that, it just made me giddy. It was so exciting."

For my money, The Mandalorian is definitely the most exciting new show of 2019, and the best thing to bear the Star Wars name since…possibly ever. I’m glad to hear that everyone on set is fully invested in it.

A second season is already in production. With any luck, we’ll be in for a long, memorable ride.

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