The Mandalorian star Emily Swallow weighs in on Gina Carano’s firing

Earlier this year, Disney fired The Mandalorian cast member Gina Carano, who played the ex-Rebel shock trooper Cara Dune, after what it called “abhorrent and unacceptable” social media activity. There was a slow build-up of that activity over a period of months, starting with Carano mocking the practice of pronoun-sharing, continuing with her mocking the practice of wearing masks during the pandemic, peddling former President Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and finally likening the way American conservatives are criticized to how Jews were treated during the Nazi Holocaust.

That last one was enough for Disney to fire Carano, although reportedly they had been looking for an excuse for a while, ever since she refused to issue a Disney-approved apology following one of the earlier incidents.

There were a lot of calls for Disney to fire Carano beforehand, and a backlash against the company when they went ahead with it. It was a mess. Now, The Mandalorian cast member Emily Swallow, who played the Mandalorian armorer, has weighed in. “All I can say is that Gina, and working with her personally, what impressed me about her from the beginning is that she is so interested in other peoples’ opinions, and is so welcoming of other peoples’ opinions,” Swallow said at Dragon Con, per The Direct. “She wants to have a genuine dialogue. She’s just like that in her day-to-day life. On set, she’s more curious about other people. She’s very giving, she’s very gracious.”

That backs up what other Mandalorian actors like Bill Burr have said about Carano, although Swallow admitted that she wasn’t familiar with the circumstances surrounding Carano’s firing. “I know so little about what happened,” she continued. “I experienced it like you did. I don’t know anything about the inner workings of it. I can only speak about Gina being a lovely person, which she is.”

"I am thoroughly baffled by a lot of what we’re dealing with right now with cancel culture and I think that it’s… oh man. There’s so many layers to it that are important to look at, but I think that the hatred that comes into it and when people start refusing to listen to the other side, no matter which side they’re on, I think that that’s really dangerous. One of the things that is so beautiful about our country is we have free speech. We can hear things that we don’t like, and we can disagree, and that’s fine."

Disney was reportedly going to feature Carano’s character in the Mandalorian spinoff show Rangers of the New Republic, which has been put on hold. After her firing, Carano teamed up with conservative news site The Daily Wire to make the movie White Knuckle.

Will the Armorer be back on The Mandalorian?

As for Swallow’s future on The Mandalorian, don’t be surprised if we see her again. We last saw her in the season 1 finale when she was left alone in a room full of hostile stormtroopers working for Moff Gideon. The odds seemed long, but we didn’t actually see her die, which on TV basically means she lived.

“[Creator Jon Favreau] told me that he had originally written it that she did sacrifice herself and that was the end of the Armorer,” Swallow said. “And then he changed his mind, and I was like ‘Thank you!'”

The Mandalorian season 3 is expected to premiere on Disney+ sometime next year.

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h/t CBR