Lars Mikkelsen Confirmed To Play Grand Admiral Thrawn in STAR WARS: AHSOKA
The return of Grand Admiral Thrawn was teased in the recently released trailer for the new Star Wars series Ahsoka, and it was an exciting moment for fans. Today, during the Ahsoka panel at Star Wars Celebration, the actor who plays Thrawn in the series was announced!
Lars Mikkelsen (The Witcher, House of Cards) is confirmed to be playing the live-action version of the Star Wars villain. New of Mikkelsen’s casting was reported over two years ago, but today it’s been confirmed by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. Fans were happy about the cast then and they are happy about the casting now as Mikkelsen voiced Thrawn in the animated series. What’s there not to love about the casting!?
When Mikkelsen appeared on stage at the event with the rest of the cast, when asked about how it felt to return to Star Wars, he said: It’s wonderful.” He talked about his experience of joining the project saying: "We met through Skype. At some point, finishing up that series, David asked me, 'Have you ever been to LA?' I went, 'No, no/' 'We're gonna make that happen,' he said...I've never been on a set with so much passion, I must say. People are so passionate about bringing this to life for you guys."
The Mandalorian and Ahsoka producer and director Dave Filoni recently talked about the process of casting the live-action version of Thrawn saying:
"It's something I've done several times now, is have an animation character make the jump [to live-action]. All I can say is, I asked [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] about this, 'How do you know when you've found the right person for the part?' and she just looked at me and said, 'Dave, you just know.' And she's right. Every time I've leaned into that process and gone through a bunch of auditions, [and] there's always one person that stands out. What might be notable for people, is Jon and I don't do that together, we do it separately. We like to do that because we like to see if we come up with the same person. We have an amazing record of accuracy together, to be connected to the same person.
"What's really telling is these are characters, in a lot of cases, in animation that I created, so I know them really well, but then I also like to get Jon's point of view, because he's a person that's seen it but doesn't know it in detail, but he'll know what I think is important about the character. When we bring that together, I think we've got a really good target for, 'Yes, that's the person,' and away we go."
It certainly is the right person to play Thrawn! Thrawn was created by author Timothy Zahn as part of a series of Star Wars novels released in the 1990s that covered the events following 1983’s Return of the Jedi. Those stories are no known as “Star Wars Legends”. Thrawn was a cunning and ruthless Grand Admiral in the Empire who takes control of what was left of the Imperial fleet and mounts a counter-offensive to take down the New Republic.
Thrawn quickly became a fan-favorite character and he was reintroduced in the Star Wars franchise in the 2016 animated series Star Wars Rebels, which fans loved.
Filoni went on to credit Tim Zahn's books for Thrawn, saying: "You would walk past the bookstore in the mall and see this standee and it said, 'Heir to the Empire,' and you wouldn't believe it.” He then described Thrawn as, "Strategically brilliant. He doesn't have the Force and it doesn't matter. He will outsmart you and he will trap you."
It’s so exciting that Gran Admiral Thawn is making his live-action debut in Ahsoka! The series is set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka “follows the former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.”
Ahsoka and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) are on the hunt for Grand Admiral Thrawn in hopes that it will lead them to find the lost Ezra Bridger, the young Jedi who disappeared with Thrawn many years ago. The series directly follows up on several threads from the animated series Star Wars Rebels.
The series will debut exclusively on Disney+ in August 2023. Are you excited to learn that Lars Mikkelsen is confirmed to play Thrawn!?