The director also names the character who’s been getting the biggest reaction from audiences.

Jon Favreau reveals why these 2 fan-favorite *Star Wars *characters aren’t in Mandalorian and Grogu

The director also names the character who's been getting the biggest reaction from audiences.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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May 22, 2026 3:00 p.m. ET

Ahsoka in 'Ahsoka;' Mando & Grogu in 'The Mandalorian;' and Thrawn in 'Ahsoka'. Credit:

- Jon Favreau tells ** why *Star Wars* characters Ahsoka Tano and Thrawn don't make an appearance in* The Mandalorian and Grogu*.

- The director and co-writer says they didn't want the film to be too closely tied to the events of the ongoing Disney+ shows.

- He also shares how they incorporated characters like Zeb in the film instead.

**This article contains spoilers for *The Mandalorian and Grogu.***

No Snips!? Jon Favreau is revealing why *The Mandalorian and Grogu* doesn’t feature cameos from *Star Wars* favorites like Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).

The director, who co-wrote the film alongside Noah Kloor and Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni, tells * *that, to appeal to a wider audience, they didn’t want Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu’s big screen debut to be too heavily tied to storylines from the Disney+ shows.

"When we were discussing doing a fourth season of [*The Mandalorian*], which was put on hold, and then the idea of doing a theatrical presentation… It changed the way we approached how interconnected things should be,” Favreau explains. “A fourth season of a show would have assumed that you saw three seasons previously and, frankly, everything else on Disney+. That's the nature of a serialized long-form TV story."

Mando and Ahsoka in 'The Book of Boba Fett'.

Still*, The Mandalorian and Grogu* does lightly touch on its place within *Star Wars* history. In the film, the eponymous father-son duo work as independent contractors for the New Republic, with Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) sending them out on missions to hunt down Galactic Empire loyalists known as Imperial Remnants.

While Ahsoka and Thrawn might not make a fly by this time, Mando and Grogu do encounter some familiar faces from the franchise. The pair is joined on their adventures by Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum), who makes his live-action debut in the film after previously starring in the animated series *Star Wars Rebels*. Embo, a no-nonsense Kyuzo bounty hunter seen in* The Clone Wars* and *The Bad Batch*, also makes an appearance in the film alongside his anooba Marrok.

Jon Favreau debuts new trailer, opening scenes of 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' at CinemaCon

Hayden Christensen confirms he'll return as Anakin Skywalker for 'Ahsoka' season 2

“We did put some characters in that people know about and want to see more of, and I think Zeb is a really good example of that,” Favreau says. “We had the time to build out really complicated action sequences [and] make him a lead character, which we never could have done in the time frame or budget of streaming.”

To say that *Star Wars* fans are happy to see the big guy flex his muscles onscreen once again is an understatement.

“Everybody who knows Zeb, because of all of the great character work that was put in over many seasons of animation, we get all of that excitement,” he continues. “Honestly, the biggest reaction we get in the film at the beginning is when we reveal him, and then when people realize that, ‘Oh, he's not just a cameo. He's actually a main player.’ They love watching him.”

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Favreau believes that the same goes for those introduced to Zeb through the film. “I think somebody who's never seen Zeb before totally gets it and thinks he's cool, too,” he says. “So that's where we're looking for the Venn diagram where those things overlap, and that's a good example.”

Mando and Grogu in 'Mandalorian and Grogu'.

Speaking with EW as part of its Debunked video series, Filoni added, “It’s not always about character crossovers, I’ll say that. It’s about the characters and what they’re experiencing.”

He continues, “We brought Ahsoka into *The Mandalorian* originally because she would be a great character to explain [to] Grogu a bit more about his history. So when we find the right reason to have characters intersect, we definitely do it.”

And besides, *Star Wars* fans won't have to wait too much longer to be reunited with their favorite Togruta warrior. *Ahsoka* season 2 is scheduled to premiere sometime early next year, with her Jedi master Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) confirmed to be returning alongside her.

*The Mandalorian and Grogu *is in theaters now.

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