Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau Discuss Ahmed Best’s Return as Kelleran Beq
One of the most exciting scenes in the third season of The Mandalorian came in “Chapter 20: The Foundling.”
In the episode, Grogu has another flashback to his experience during Order 66. The young foundling recalled his harrowing time in the Jedi Temple during the galaxy-wide executions, and viewers were finally given answers to how The Child survived.
As it turns out, Grogu was saved by a Jedi Master Kelleran Beq. During the Siege of the Jedi Temple, Beq waited for and eventually escaped with his former pupil Grogu.
Prior to his appearance in The Mandalorian, the character Kelleran Beq was best known for his appearance on Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge.
Ahmed Best’s Return
For fans of the Star Wars franchise as a whole, however, Ahmed Best is most remembered for his work as Jar-Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy.
Following his portrayal of the polarizing character, Best was attacked online and even considered committing suicide.
“The depression hit me. Hard. I was just broken. The only thing I could think of to make me feel better was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge,” he recalled.
Thankfully, Best has now returned to the Star Wars fold and is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
Bringing Beq To The Canon
In a recent interview with Entertainment Today, Mandalorian producers Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau talked about Best’s triumphant return.
“We love Ahmed, and he did such a great job. It was a real thrill for us to get him involved,” Filoni said.
“We talked with him about it. And we come up with these ideas and we think: Who might work with it? We make sure before we get too far to bring them into the process, so it’s not just like, ‘Here’s who you’re going to play.’ It’s like, ‘What do you think of this? We want you to be this person. What are your thoughts on it?’ [We try to] make it a real collaboration and think it’s really key to the success of it.”
Bringing Kelleran Beq from the non-canon children’s game show Jedi Temple Challenge to The Mandalorian was a big step. According to the producers, however, it made sense.
“He had done a lot of work on that character of Kelleran Beq for Jedi Temple Challenge. So he’s been involved with Star Wars all the way through and definitely had formulated this character. And we love to draw from all of Star Wars and even things that aren’t canon. If they feel right, we’ll pull ’em in. And so it just made sense. Because you’re also looking at ‘Who could it be?’”, Favreau said.
A Star Wars Veteran
For Filoni, the fact that Best was a Star Wars veteran, who had worked with George Lucas, made his inclusion in the show that much more special.
” You know, when you’re a veteran of this thing, I think it hits you in probably a very different way. And he worked with George, which is very special. It’s such a close-knit group of people now. And I think it’s fun to have these people still included. Like in Obi-Wan, you know, Hayden and Ewan, how great was it just seeing them? It lives on, Star Wars keeps continuing in the best possible way.”
While we don’t yet know when we, or even if, we will see Kelleran Beq again in The Mandalorian. The fact that Best was able to rejoin the Star Wars fold, and Beq was incorporated into canon are monumental achievements in and of themselves. I for one, however, hope that we are not done learning Kelleran Beq’s story.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon! Thanks for reading!