The Mandalorian spawned not one but two spinoffs with its second season, and the Ahsoka limited series promises to bring back some very familiar faces and perhaps even answer some long-standing questions for Star Wars TV fans. Rosario Dawson will headline as the live-action actress for Ahsoka Tano, and news recently broke that a Star Wars Rebels character will be coming to live-action as well. Now, another casting has been announced, and this one is more mysterious.
Pacific Rim: Uprising actress Ivanna Sakhno has joined Ahsoka for Disney+, according to Deadline, joining an announced cast of Rosario Dawson as the Star Wars fan-favorite and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as the live-action version of Star Wars Rebels’ Sabine Wren. Unlike Dawson and Bordizzo, however, Sakhno will reportedly be playing a brand new character who has been created for Ahsoka.
That’s bad news for any fans who are holding out hope for announcements of more cast members bringing animated characters to life on this upcoming show, or more movie actors appearing in the Star Wars TV shows, but exciting news for the show in general. Especially considering there are relatively few confirmed details available about Ahsoka at this point, at least compared to The Book of Boba Fett (which is just weeks away from premiering in late December) as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor (which are both expected in 2022)!
Neither Lucasfilm nor Ivanna Sakhno have commented on her casting at the time of writing, so fans may be in for a bit of a wait to find out any more about her character. It already seems that the show will play with the timeline a bit, given that Hayden Christensen will reportedly appear in Ahsoka … as Anakin Skywalker, not Darth Vader. Short of Anakin appearing to his former Padawan exclusively as a Force ghost, it seems safe to guess that there could be some flashbacks.
The Mandalorian has included flashbacks (albeit brief) to Din Djarin’s youth, so there’s certainly precedent in the Star Wars TV shows. And if there are flashbacks, that could mean Ivanna Sakhno playing somebody from Ahsoka’s past, even if not somebody who fans have seen before. Her playing a new character does at least rule out that she’d appear as somebody like Barriss Offee, whose fate following the end of The Clone Wars (and ties to Ahsoka) has left fans with some questions for years.
Considering Ahsoka’s mission, however, this new character could end up pretty much anywhere in that galaxy far, far away if it gets her closer to Thrawn. Clearly, we can only speculate for now. Hopefully more details about her role will release in the not-too-distant future, and production on the series is expected to begin in March.
At least a Star Wars fix is coming sooner rather than later thanks to The Book of Boba Fett premiering on December 29, and more on the way in the new year on Disney+. You can already find plenty of other Star Wars content on the Disney streamer, including the previous appearances of Ahsoka Tano in live-action on The Mandalorian and animation with Clone Wars and Rebels (voiced by Ashley Eckstein).
