The Mandalorian is a massive hit and went a long way towards making Disney+ a success in its first year. The second season just wrapped with the bombshell appearance of a digitally de-aged Luke Skywalker and the announcement of several spinoffs, including Rangers of the New Republic, Ahsoka Tano and The Book of Boba Fett have fans pretty hyped. The third run of the show is also in the pipeline, presumably dealing with the fallout of Din Djarin possessing the Darksaber.
So, all’s rosy right? Well, not in the world of industry insider Grace Randolph. She’s been claiming for months that star Pedro Pascal repeatedly clashed with production staff on set. Her first line was that he was unhappy that his character had to spend so much time wearing a helmet and that he wanted to show his face more. She said this disagreement meant that Djarin would be written out of the series midway through the second season and Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett would become the protagonist.
When that didn’t happen, she switched gears to saying The Book of Boba Fett is The Mandalorian‘s third outing, with the studio writing Pascal’s character out now that the Grogu arc is complete. This was also scotched, though, when Disney and Lucasfilm confirmed that these are two separate shows.
Now, things have taken a darker turn, as she posted (and then deleted) a tweet saying the following:
“Another source just reached out to me, turns out reason Pascal was asked to leave the set is far more serious than I’d originally heard. It was NOT the helmet issues. Since it’s so serious I didn’t ask for the reason because I want to stay out of it. Done.”
These days, “far more serious” reads like you’re making sexual and/or violence-related allegations, which is a somewhat bigger deal than her original story of Pascal being a prima donna and wanting to take the helmet off on camera.
It’s worth mentioning that the main source of these rumors is Randolph herself, with the only other person corroborating them being YouTuber Doomcock, and he’s notorious for inventing stories designed to harm women working on Star Wars. So, what’s going on? Well, it’s possible that she’s being manipulated by a malicious fake source, but her refusal to admit she might have gotten this one wrong (and her eagerness to block anyone who points that out) is certainly very strange.
The current evidence would seem to indicate that this story simply isn’t true, but there also could be some drama brewing behind the scenes, even if it’s not as bad as Randolph makes it out to be. In any case, we’ll know for sure when The Mandalorian season 3 begins shooting.
