Who is the mysterious ‘Ahsoka’ star Paul Darnell?

Star Wars fans are rightly curious about the mysterious Marrok. The masked villain made his debut in the first episode of Ahsoka and Disney and Lucasfilm have been very cagey about who’s playing him. As of episode 3 he’s spoken his first words though, let’s face it, “As you wish” doesn’t give us a lot of insight into his personality.

Many have turned to the show’s credits for answers. Marrok appears in the credits as “Featuring” rather than “Starring” and lists Paul Darnell as playing him. So, who is Paul Darnell and does he give us any clues as to who Marrok really is?

A Disney Plus Star Wars veteran

Darnell is primarily a stunt performer, making his debut alongside Star Wars itself on Disney Plus in the first episode of The Mandalorian back in 2019. Since then he’s gone on to be Timothy Olyphant’s stunt double as Cobb Vanth in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, as well as playing a Night Wind Assassin and Trandoshan Gambler in the latter show. Darnell even picked up an Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Stunt Performance in The Mandalorian episode “The Return”.

Beyond Star Wars, Darnell also has a sterling stunt performer resume, appearing in The Matrix Resurrections, Tenet, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Jurassic World and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Darnell also has a handful of acting credits, with iMDB listing Marrok among those parts rather than in his stunt section. Despite this, we think that when Marrok removes his mask Darnell will be nowhere to be seen.

A long Star Wars tradition

Since A New Hope, many Star Wars characters have been played by multiple actors. The most obvious example is Darth Vader: the man in the costume was bodybuilder Dave Prowse, the booming voice was James Earl Jones and, when it came time to reveal his face in Return of the Jedi, Sebastian Shaw played the elderly Anakin.

More recently, Din Djarin in The Mandalorian is usually Brendan Wayne wearing the costume on set with Pedro Pascal providing the vocal performance in post-production. By the time of the recent third season, the very busy Pascal even described the role as “mostly a voice-over gig”.

Given that Darnell is a stuntman, we think he was cast primarily for his physical talents, though this doesn’t shed any light on who’d be voicing or acting as Marrok.

Is Darnell voicing Marrok?

It’s also unclear whether Darnell is providing Marrok’s voice in episode 3, though we suspect not. Fans have seized on the fact that “additional voices” sections lists Darth Maul, Emperor Palpatine, and Starkiller voice actor Sam Witwer among the cast, though as Witwer has appeared in the majority of Star Wars media released over the last decade, this shouldn’t be taken as confirmation that one of his previous characters is under the mask.

We think it’s very likely Darnell is just providing the physical performance for Marrok, with his stunt and combat experience a perfect match for the villain. But somewhere across the next five episodes that mask is going to come off, it’s going to be a surprise existing character, and the fanbase is going to go nuts.