Eman Esfandi Admits He Did Not Watch ‘Rebels’ Before Playing Ezra in ‘Ahsoka’
The latest Star Wars live-action series, Ahsoka, not only continued the story of perhaps the most important Star Wars character in the last two decades, but it also brought a collection of animated characters to live-action for the first time.
While Rosario Dawson and Natasha Liu Bordizzo were both very vocal about having researched the animated history of their characters, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead confirmed she watched all of Hera’s previous appearances in Star Wars Rebels, it turns out one Ahsoka cast member did not do their homework.
Eman Esfandi Did Not Watch ‘Rebels’
At the L.A. Comic-Con Ahsoka panel, Eman Esfandi, who portrayed Ezra Bridger in the series, revealed that he purposefully avoided watching Star Wars Rebels before filming his scenes.
“I admittedly – which, if you would have found this out prior you might have taken my head off, but maybe now you don’t think that – I didn’t watch all of ‘Rebels’. I didn’t want to get too caught up in the younger version of Ezra. I felt very connected to an older version the way he was written.”
While the actor didn’t watch the entire series, he did watch key Ezra episodes, especially those that developed his relationship with the Sepctre crew.
“And I watched the episodes where [Ezra] had scenes very intimately with like Sabine and the Spectre crew and Ahsoka in particular. And just to understand that dynamic. Obviously, the hologram message, and also my TikTok became flooded with the scene–rest in peace Kanan. So I was inundated with a lot of it.”
Esfandi Could Lean on Filoni
While some fans will look sideways at Esfandi for not doing his research, the actor says that he got such good feedback during production that he felt comfortable with his performance.
“But I didn’t watch it until after the show. Because Dave [Filoni], and everyone else who was directing me were so like, reaffirming. Like, ‘no, yeah, that’s Ezra. Oh, that’s also so Ezra. And we’d be backstage, that’s Ezra. I was like, okay, so then I think we’re good. Like, I’ll watch it later. So I didn’t actually do the immersion thing until all the way after shooting.”
Esfandi could likely get away with not watching Rebels, as Dave Filoni was on hand. For those who don’t know, Filoni created both Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka.
Interstingly, Esfandi says he has now watched all of Rebels, meaning the animated series will inform any future Ezra appearance.
Hopefully, we see more of Ezra and Spectre Crew soon.