The “Star Wars” franchise is known for its colorful characters: from green Yoda to red Darth Maul.
But bringing the blue-haired Grand Admiral Thrawn to live-action was a challenge, “Ahsoka” showrunner Dave Filoni told TheWrap at Star Wars Celebration on Saturday.
“Blue is a tricky one,” admitted Filoni. “And now there are a lot of blue characters out there. Cade Bain was a well-known blue one.
Filoni and his creative team previously brought Thrawn to the small screen in the animated “Star Wars Rebels” — where his skin color could be changed with just a click on a digital palette. Getting the colors right in real life proved to be a much greater challenge.
“We went round and round in the blue!” Filoni accepted. “and green [for Hera], and orange [for Ahsoka],
“Why did I do all this?” he asked rhetorically, laughing. “I could make my life so much easier!”
“If the blue is too strong, it starts to lean too far back in the animation,” Filoni explained. “So you have to find a blue that’s complex, that has many layers to it, that has transparency and that feeling of blood and skin.”
Eventually, after much experimentation with Thrawn actor Lars Mikkelsen, the crew finally found the right blue. While fans around the world got a glimpse of Thrawn’s navy neck in the trailer, his face was revealed in full to Celebration attendees.
But Filoni says that blue skin is just a physical feature and that Mikkelsen brings a lot more to the role.
“The way he stands, the way he carries himself – he’s an admiral!” Filoni explained. And then, of course, there’s the voice. “I knew in Rebels when I heard him say, ‘It’s the guy.’
,[Lars] draws from the blue, mary [Elizabeth Winstead] pulls Hare and they’re soldiers,” he said. “When you decide to do a show like this and characters like this, [they’re] Every day 2-3 hours in the makeup chair. This means that they get there much earlier than everyone else so that they can schedule calls. It is a commitment and it makes their life more difficult and not a word of complaint. They are all very interested in it and doing it and living it and I am very grateful for that.
Mickelsen didn’t mind.
“It was okay,” the Danish actor told TheWrap about the makeup test and application process. “I would even say that in those 2 and 3 hours in the morning, you get sewn up. You see the character in the mirror.”
When asked if he was concerned about having blue on Thrawn’s very white dress uniform, Mikkelsen replied most grand admiral.
“Oh yeah, it’s always a thing,” she replied. “But you have people who are running.”
‘Ahsoka’ will premiere on Disney Plus in August.