The actor and martial artist helps bring her Ahsoka character to animation with stories set before her debut in The Mandalorian.
Inside the recording booth, Diana Lee Inosanto swapped her beskar spear for a pen. She wore comfortable clothes instead of one of Morgan Elsbeth’s costumes. The rest of the performance, however, was much the same.
“It's still the same approach, the same commitment, the same breathing, the same physicality,” she tells StarWars.com. “Now, when I watch Pedro Pascal doing his behind-the-scenes [recordings, holding a pillow in place of Grogu,] I get it.”
But the first time Dave Filoni suggested that Elsbeth might live on in animation, Inosanto thought it was a joke. They were in production for the Ahsoka series at the time, set after fans first met the Magistrate of Calodan in The Mandalorian. “He said something about being able to go to work in sweatpants. And then when I got the call it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really happening.’ He wasn't kidding, you know?”
The story that unfolds in the first three episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, the animated anthology arriving on Disney+ May 4, examines events only previously alluded to: Morgan’s affiliation with the Nightsisters of Dathomir, the beginning of her partnership with Thrawn, and how she established her own corner of the Empire on Corvus. Reunited with Filoni in the recording booth, “Dave was really good about going over the different choices and the approach with the line, really analyzing what's happening in this moment, in this scene,” Inosanto says. “What are the stakes? Where's the urgency?” The animated series also gave her an opportunity to reconnect with her Mandalorian co-star Wing T. Chao, who reprises his role as Wing.
Inosanto, a trained martial artist, moved her body to match the animation. The on-screen combat moves were inspired by her godfather, Bruce Lee, as well as her own live-action fight choreography, she says. Replicating them in the booth ensured her vocal quality would be authentic. She already knew the character so well by then, having played her twice before.
Some secrets still remain, of course. But learning her official backstory — Inosanto studied up on Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn books when she first landed the part — has made her more sympathetic to the warrior. “When you see the kind of pain and suffering that she witnessed and yet still had the fortitude of trying to just stand tall…I mean, who could not relate to that?” Inosanto says. “She's resilient, defiant, strong. She is a survivor. She created this armor of anger that she felt would protect her and I think people are going to understand now why Morgan is wired the way she is wired.”
As always, Morgan Elsbeth is doing it for Dathomir. “Her people, in essence, are always somewhere with her in spirit.”
And Inosanto has been delighted to connect with fans who have become enamored with the character over the course of her journey from Nightsister to mysterious servant of Thrawn. “We love seeing a strong woman and a complicated woman. You know, she's not perfect,” Inosanto says. “Yet, I've had [parents] come up to me and say, ‘I love what you've done. I love that I can show my daughter this fierce woman warrior.’ In some ways, we're all survivors, right? And I think that's why people are connecting with Morgan.”
Read about Meredith Salenger's journey with Barriss Offee and see the trailer for Star Wars: Tales of the Empire before it arrives on Disney+ this Star Wars Day, May the 4th.
