Katee Sackhoff cried when she saw herself as Bo-Katan in The Mandalorian

Katee Sackhoff played Mandalorian warrior Bo-Katan Kryze for years before she actually put on the physical armor. Is it a one-time role or is her journey just beginning?

In the latest episode of The Mandalorian, our hero came across Bo-Katan Kryze, a Mandalorian warrior leading a group of fighters to reclaim the throne of her home planet (and the Darksaber, currently in possession of Moff Gideon; look for that to blow up soon). Bo-Katan first appeared a decade ago on the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars, voiced by Battlestar Galactica vet Katee Sackhoff. She later appeared on the sequel show Star Wars Rebels. Finally, in a welcome move, Sackhoff played the character — in live-action this time — on The Mandalorian.

It was a perfect fit, obviously, but voicing a character and playing them in full costume are different things, and there was some stuff Sackhoff had to get used to. “I think the main thing is I truly thought that having voiced her for over a decade would help me,” she told StarWars.com. “And it actually sort of hurt a little bit in the beginning. While it gave me a tremendous understanding of who she was as a person, it didn’t help me to figure out her physicality. It didn’t help me to figure out the way her face moved or the way she walked. I had seen the way she moved, but it was in animation. And so to translate that in a way that didn’t look cartoonish was actually harder than I thought it would be.”

"There is a stoicism to Bo-Katan that is very purposeful and intentional. When she moves, she means to do it. It’s thought out. So I really had to find a way of living her and having her move [in a way] that felt calculated, which did not allow for ‘Crazy Katee’ to come into play at all."

Obviously, the performance paid off — “The Heiress” is the highest rated episode so far this season. Playing the character this long, Sackhoff obviously feels close to her, and it helped her find her core. “You’ve seen her grow up and grow as an individual and as a leader,” Sackhoff says. “A lot of people forget. In the beginning of Clone Wars, she was not a very good person when we first met her.”

"[S]he has never known how to lead. She’s always reserved that for her sister, for the diplomats and the politicians. She was the warrior. And I think that we’ve seen her from our first introduction to her and where we’re finding her now is this person who’s struggled with that and then ultimately leaned into it and realized that — pun intended! — this is the way. She is the rightful leader and she does know how to lead. She understands the way the Mandalorians think, their history, and their beliefs and who they are as a people. And that — we’ve seen her grow into that. And she still has faults."

For example, Bo-Katan has a bit of an ego on her. “And a lot of leaders do,” Sackhoff adds. With all this character development, you almost wonder if they intend to use Bo-Katan more, either in future episodes of The Mandalorian or even her own series…There are certainly plenty of other Star Wars spinoffs in the pipeline; what’s one more?

Sackhoff obviously wasn’t going to give anything away, but she did hint that she knows what happened to Bo-Katan between the end of Star Wars Rebels and when we catch back up with her on The Mandalorian. “It’s a very interesting set of circumstances and I will not spoil that…nor am I allowed to,” she laughed.

For now, she’s just drinking in the amazement that this is really happening. “I had tears in my eyes…when I saw the first picture of her that somebody had tweeted,” Sackhoff said. “I lost my mind. She is such a perfect representation of who she was in Clone Wars and Rebels.”

If I were a betting man, I’d say we’ll find out one or two other things about where Bo-Katan’s been before the season is out…and maybe where she’s going, too.

A new episode of The Mandalorian airs on Disney+ tomorrow!

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