First Night of PaleyFest 2023 with the Cast and Creative Team from The Mandalorian

By Judy Shields and Lucas Camacho

Hollywood, California (The Hollywood Times) 03/31/2023

A beautiful night in Hollywood at the Dolby Theatre as fans lined up to get inside for The Mandalorian panel for the first night of PaleyFest 2023.  All the press got checked in an hour and half before the start time of 7p.  We all looked for our name on the red carpet, just buzzing with excitement and ready for our one on one interviews with the schedule creative team and two stars of the series.

There were quite a bit of reporters on the red carpet as well as photographers at the beginning and then all of sudden you could see the flashes going off and knew someone of importance had arrived.  The first one on the red carpet was Rick Famuyiwa, then Dave Filoni and Katee Sackhoff.  Pedro Pascal and Jon Favreau only had photos taken and was unable to walk the red carpet.  Dave and Rick were pulled off the red carpet before they made their way to us.  I was able to ask Katee one question.

Photos taken by Lucas Camacho (THT)

Here is the interview with Katee Sackhoff:

On Friday, March 31, 2022, PaleyFest celebrated with the cast and creatives from The Mandalorian at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The evening included: Pedro Pascal, “The Mandalorian”, Katee Sackhoff, “Bo-Katan Kryze”, Jon Favreau, Showrunner & Executive Producer, Dave Filoni, Executive Producer, and Rick Famuyiwa, Executive Producer. Entertainment Tonight’s Ash Crossan moderated the panel, who Jon Favreau told the audience that she had been with them since the beginning of the series.

I have to tell you, Dave Filoni is such a hoot, funny, charismatic man who wears a cowboy hat well! He told the audience in a somewhat slow pace that there is a lot of plans unfolding, a lot of things are set up and all very fun.  He went on to say “at the end of the day, we try to make the kind of shows and tell the kind of stories that we always dreamed of when we were playing with Star Wars Toys.” What a huge round of applause that got.  He went on to talk a little about other shows which got claps and lots of chatter from the audience. Then Jon says “when is that coming out?” which caused the audience to explode!  Dave also said “people always ask, how much longer is this going to go and I say, we really enjoy making is, so we are just going to keep doing it.”  He went on to say, without any SPOILERS, that “there are plans, there are shows with characters in them.”  Loud applauses!  “This is the Way!”

Ash Crossman asked Pedro “from season one until now, what has this experience meant to you and how has it changed your life? Pedro responded: “It has changed my life completely, I feel like I have gotten to see, the thing is I knew it was going to be amazing. When I first met them and I have told the story a hundred times, that stepping into the room and meeting both Jon and Dave in this room with wall to wall story illustrations with the entire first season of The Mandalorian, and seeing The Child, Baby Grogu, and knowing that people are going to die, they are going to love this.  Also, I grew up, Swingers came out (audience erupted in cheers) and I seen Jon as an actor, then saw Swingers and sort of understood what happens if someone takes licenses to tell their stories and just hasn’t stopped since then.  Whether it be Indy film, comedy or incredible world building stories like, Star Wars, (in a whisper) Iron Man and then Dave,” (laughter) “who is the guy in the cowboy hat?” Dave responds with “that’s fair.”  “I basically seen them do exactly what I know they set out to do and do it for the people who love the stories as much as they do, and Dave told me at the very beginning of Season One that we wanted you (referring to Katee) to do Bo-Katan and I was like oh my God I love her from Battlestar Galactica (audience goes wild).  Katee chimes in with “Dave just lied to me” and Dave says ” I don’t see it that way.”

One of the funniest moments was when Pedro asked to wear Dave’s hat and Dave handed it to him and Pedro put it on and looked amazing.  It got a loud round of applause.  Here is a photo of that moment:

Jon was asked about brining in other directors on to work with them.

Jon: “The most important qualification is the excitement around getting involved with making Star Wars, that is the one things we all have in common.” “We may have come from different generations, different filmmaking backgrounds, everybody is a good storyteller, it’s a team sport.”  Rick said “Everybody supports on another, and the foundation being Star Wars fans and building our family of storytellers.”

Jon talked about working on a movie and working on this series shown on TV streaming.  He likes working on this series and he loves how much people care about this show and that everyone has something to say about the show and that is a good thing because he has worked on things that you put all the work into and people would say, when does that come out and IT IS OUT.  That got a great laugh.

Yet another funny moment was when Ash asked Katee a question and Pablo thought it was for him and that got a laugh and he said, “there is a weird echo in here, so what did you ask me, what was I thinking about”? he went on to say “I was thinking about that there isn’t a direct adaptation and if it were, watching the episode with all the Mandalorian, yes it comes from the world of George Lucas Star Wars, but you guys still create this detailed world that I forget doesn’t come from an encyclopedia, who know,” Dave chimes in with “there are encyclopedia’s to buy” huge laugh!  Pedro then said Okay, I was just thinking it is really good. I spaced out.”

She asked Katee, could she expand on that, and Katee said “I forgot the question” more laughter erupted.  “I grew up watching science fiction with my dad and was always one of the things we shared together, to have been part of the animation already, to be able to take the character into live action, something I only dreamed about. I opened the flood gates it’s phenomenal, I’m speechless.”

Jon said ‘I remember the first day you were on set in costume.  It was the first time Dave saw the animated character in live action so it was surreal for both of them.  It was so weird for us all.”

Here is what our photographer Lucas Camacho had to say about his experience:

“I remember my Saturdays as a child very well.  I was either watching a movie or on a Little League field.  It was just happenstance that I decided to follow the path of movies and television in high school as a result of a scheduling error.  Since then, I have bounced around from one community access station to the next.  It’s not much of a living, but I was doing what I loved.  Then came the day my cousin Judy invited me to help her photograph the PaleyFest event on Friday night.  It felt like a dream being able to cover a red carpet event at the historic Dolby Theater.  It was truly a night I’ll never forget.

As a Star Wars fan, I was naturally excited to see the brilliant minds behind The Mandalorian in Dave Filoni, Jon Favreau, and Rick Famuyiwa.  I was also excited to see the amazing Katee Sackhoff, who plays Bo-Katan Kryze in the series, and of course the Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal (although I think it would have been cool if they somehow got Grogu to make an appearance). Being with the fans, I felt the same way they felt in every cool scene and every Easter Egg that dropped in the screening of the latest episode from The Mandalorian.  Even though that was an amazing experience, that’s not my biggest takeaway from the night.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is the biggest event I’ve ever attended.  I never thought I would get to be inside the Dolby Theater.  This is the theater where many memorable moments have happened (mainly the Oscars, but still).  I truly felt like I was in a dream.  Seeing the red carpet, seeing Dave and Pedro down the aisle, and watching Katee walk by me was more incredible than I could describe.  It was a night that I thought would end with me waking up to find it was only a dream.  But it wasn’t.  I was there for the most amazing event of my life, and I don’t think I will ever forget it.” Lucas Camacho, The Hollywood Times

Here are some photos courtesy of The Paley Center:

Here is a photo of two billboards just across the street from the Highland and Hollywood center, which I thought was cool:

This was an amazing panel, with so much interesting conversations and Dave and Jon telling how scenes were developed, shot and how much fun they all had. It was a fan of The Mandaloirian’s dream to have been in the audience.  Just amazing and the reason why fans should become Paley members to be able to get tickets before they go on sale to the public and be able to be part of all the shows that come to PaleyFest each year.

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