‘The Book of Boba Fett’ star on why the bounty hunter became a crime boss

The Book of Boba Fett features a very different take on the fan-favorite Star Wars character from the one we met in the Original Trilogy. For starters, he spends most of his time on screen without his helmet. Most of all, though, Fett has gone down a new career path in The Mandalorian spinoff show, as the series is exploring the aftermath of his decision to take over Jabba the Hutt’s empire and become the biggest crime boss on Tatooine.

The switch from bounty hunter to daimyo is a major one for the anti-hero, and we’re still yet to discover exactly what motivated Fett to make this decision in the first place. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the man himself, Temuera Morrison, was asked about the thinking behind Boba’s big change. Morrison was careful not to give anything away, encouraging the interviewer to ask the writing team instead, but he did tease that Fett has a larger plan at work.

“That’s a very good question. We’re going to start somewhere, I guess. We’re going to be branching out and looking at other things to do. But yeah, we’ll start small and then we’ll venture out. If you focus on the job, you’d better ask the writer that.”

When Fett was first reintroduced into the Star Wars universe in Mando season 2, his original goal was simply to get his stolen Mandalorian armor back. Once that was done, he paid off his debt to Din Djarin by helping him rescue Grogu from Moff Gideon. The season finale’s tag scene then saw him kill Bib Fortuna and assume control of the Tatooine underworld. This suggests Boba was always playing the long game and this was his ultimate aim all along.

The first two episodes of the spinoff show have featured prominent flashbacks that not only reveal how Fett escaped from the Sarlaac pit but also depict his subsequent friendship with the Tusken Raiders. Presumably, Morrison’s above comments are so vague because an actual explanation for why the character got the urge for power is about to be revealed in one of the four episodes still to come, as The Book of Boba Fett continues Wednesdays on Disney Plus.