You don’t need me to tell you that the biggest breakout element of The Mandalorian is the adorable critter colloquially known as Baby Yoda. Thanks to showrunner Jon Favreau deciding to keep his inclusion a secret before the series aired – even if that does mean Disney is having to play catch-up with merch opportunities – the internet went crazy for the little guy when he was revealed as the mysterious Asset in the pilot.
Across the rest of the eight-episode first season, we were gifted many instantly meme-able scenes of Baby Yoda, but we didn’t actually find out that much about him. After all, though he’s officially called The Child right now, he does have a real name. This has already been teased by The Mandalorian director/voice of IG-11 Taika Waititi as well. But in a new interview with EW, Waititi has cast doubt on the one thing we did know about him – that the creature is male.
“I knew that people would be talking about Baby Yoda, but I also know Baby Yoda’s real name. So if you’re gonna do me a favor, please stop calling him ‘Baby Yoda.’ Or is it a her! No one knows!”
We imagine Waititi is just kidding here, as characters on The Mandalorian have previously referred to Baby Yoda with male pronouns. The first explicit mention of his sex came about in episode 3, in fact, when Werner Herzog’s Client called the Force-using alien a “him.” Plus, coming from the man who said The Child’s real name was “Nigel” on Twitter, maybe we’d best take Waititi’s quote in not too serious of a manner. Then again, who knows?
In any case, season 1 ended with the titular Mandalorian, real name Din Djarin, and his young charge escaping the clutches of Moff Gideon and shooting off into the universe to find somewhere for Baby Yoda to be safe. But, with his new handy Darksaber, Gideon will be back on their tails in season 2. At which point, we should also learn more about the nature of The Child and his species.
