YODA Always two, there are.
No more, no less.
A master and an apprentice.
DAVE FILONI Star Wars always has these great
master–apprentice relationships.
OBI-WAN KENOBI Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force
flowing through him.
ROSARIO DAWSON You see that handing down of mastery,
the teaching, the developing, the growing.
YODA Do, or do not. There is no try.
JON FAVREAU It's very much the idea of apprenticeship.
The need for those two groups to come together in order to
pass down the knowledge and to help save the world, in the case of Star Wars.
DARTH VADER When I left you, I was but the learner.
Now I am the master.
OBI-WAN KENOBI Only a master of evil, Darth.
ROSARIO DAWSON Those life lessons are what make
these characters some of the most iconic characters worldwide.
LUKE SKYWALKER The war is just beginning,
and I will not be the last Jedi.
CARRIE BECK All of that wisdom gets passed down,
you know, over those generations.
We have Qui-Gon Jinn, who is the master of Obi-Wan,
who is the master of Anakin Skywalker. And by being trained by Anakin,
Ahsoka is a part of that legacy as well.
♪♪
JON FAVREAU Ahsoka is a character that Dave Filoni
created and worked with George Lucas on in The Clone Wars.
DAVE FILONI Originally, we didn't really know,
you know, exactly what The Clone Wars was going to be.
We made up our own little band of characters.
There was a character that was a Jedi, and there was a Padawan.
We thought, we'll put them on adventures. But, you know, George had other ideas.
He says, "Well, in this character..." and he points to the Padawan we had,
and he says "Let's give Anakin Skywalker a Padawan."
And I was like, "Anakin doesn't have a Padawan."
And he just looked at me and said, "Anakin has a Padawan."
And that was basically it. That's how Ahsoka came about.
We cast Ashley Eckstein to be the voice of the character,
and she's fantastic in The Clone Wars and Rebels.
ROSARIO DAWSON Ahsoka is one of the most
well-developed characters in Star Wars, period.
CARRIE BECK She is the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.
She is the only one that he has trained to be a Jedi.
DAVE FILONI This young teenage girl,
who was trained to be a keeper of the peace,
had to become a warrior, worthy of standing next to
the greatest Jedi of all time.
DAVE FILONI Ahsoka's story and her growth
has mirrored my own.
As you can see my style of storytelling mature, the stories got more complex.
It had grown to the point where I wanted to take what I was doing
in animation and really see if I could get it to this type of storytelling
that I'd grown up with in Star Wars.
Mandalorian: Season 1 was a perfect place for me to experiment
with my own creativity and style, but have a great backstop
and support from collaborating with all these other extraordinary people.
THE ARMORER You must reunite it with its own kind.
THE MANDALORIAN This is the Way.
DAVE FILONI So, when Season 2 came around,
I was like, for my episode, I was like, well, I'm going to do Ahsoka.
I'm like, I just need to try this. Let's do it.
THE MANDALORIAN Ahsoka Tano! Bo-Katan sent me!
AHSOKA TAN I hope it's about him.
GROGU [Noises]
JON FAVREAU For a character that has such depth
and complexity, to bring that character to live-action made
a tremendous amount of sense.
AHSOKA TANO Tell me what I want to know.
Where is your master?
JON FAVREAU George visited the set
when we were filming the lightsaber fight
in the Japanese garden in Season 2.
And I think he was really encouraging of Dave,
stepping up to this role.
And so, George would turn to Kathy and myself and be proud of Dave.
He was Dave's teacher, and Dave was his apprentice.
DAVE FILONI There are moments when
I just stare at her, and I'm just like, Wow, she just looks like...
SHAWNA TRPCIC She came to life?
DAVE FILONI ...this thing I've drawn. You know,
but Rosario has done all the research. Like, she knows the character,
but now she has to become it in a way that's never happened before.
ROSARIO DAWSON Yeah, it actually...
The thing that feels most awkward right now is talking with you.
You know, the posing and, you know, sort of the stances that we're doing,
that's not unusual. But speaking as Rosario
while in Ahsoka is a little startling.
I really love the transformation and really deep diving into who she is.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY Rosario Dawson is just such an incredibly
powerful actress, and she loves this character.
I think everything about who Ahsoka is, is just brought to life in a way
that almost nobody else could.
DAVE FILONI She not only gets the character,
but she gets, like, the Star Wars of it all, which is an important ingredient.
You have to be in it.
This is a hard thing. You're going to have to be painted orange every day.
You're going to have to put a prosthetic on your head every day.
You're going to be training like a Jedi to learn how to lightsaber fight
almost every day.
ROSARIO DAWSON I'm playing someone who is
an absolute expert. And so, I really wanted to be able
to physicalize that as much as possible.
DAVE FILONI A Jedi's primary weapon
is a lightsaber. There need to be a lot of lightsaber fights.
And they have to be good, because our fans know the difference.
ROSARIO DAWSON When I started getting my stances
and some of the postures and, you know, started really getting
my left hand up to par with my right, that I started to really feel like
I was sinking into who Ahsoka was.
Because her physicality is such a huge part of who she is.
No matter how tired I was, I was like,
Sign me up for some more. Sign me up for some more!
DAVE FILONI When you step into Star Wars,
and work with George, you are a part of a legacy.
You're part of a history. And we had to uphold that history,
and yet do this completely new and different thing.
KATHLEEN KENNEDY Ahsoka is another story
where you can step in at any point and not feel that you necessarily
have to have seen everything.
DAVE FILONI From the beginning of this series,
Ahsoka is out there on the fringe of the galaxy.
When she hears whispers of this warlord's return,
she decides to enlist her friends' help.
AHSOKA TANO This is about preventing another war.
HERA SYNDULLA You know who could help.
HUYANG Sabine Wren.
AHSOKA TANO I'm not sure she'll want to help.
DAVE FILONI I'm telling this story about this
mentor–student relationship that passes from Anakin to Ahsoka to Sabine.
AHSOKA TANO There is nothing easy about being a Jedi.
DAVE FILONI It's quite extraordinary
bringing this to life.
♪♪
AHSOKA TANO When the stakes are this high...
...we have to do what's right.
♪♪