Exclusive: Giancarlo Esposito on Wielding Mandalorian Season 2’s Darksaber

March 10, 2020

By Drew Taylor

In the closing moments of the first season of The Mandalorian Season 1, viewers were treated to quite a shock: Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon, emerging from a destroyed TIE Fighter wielding a darksaber, an ancient weapon with deep ties to the Mandalorian culture.

While at the premiere of another hotly anticipated Disney+ title, the original film Stargirl (streaming on Friday), we only had a few precious moments with Esposito and we had to ask: Is he ready to swing that darksaber?

“I am. I really am. I want to say I’ve destroyed quite a few of them and the prop guys go, ‘Wow, you go all in,’” Esposito told us.

He then went more in depth about The Mandalorian and its mythical overtures: “This season is going to be really great. This is the ultimate space western that’s so connected to things that we don’t know and don’t see. Originally George Lucas had a mentor and friend in Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was all about the power of myth and the journey of the hero. Isn’t every one of our journeys the journey of the hero? We have our own hurdles to jump over and our own visions on our head that we want to hit. I was thinking the other day about all the things in my life that I haven’t done. And will I be disappointed at the end if I haven’t done them? And what’s the flipside to that – I’ve done so many of my visions and dreams of what I’ve wanted to do and if I miss a couple on the bucket list I’m not going to be upset about that. But a lot of people haven’t checked off one or two or three.”

Esposito then summed things up nicely: “’The Mandalorian’ is a series so steeped in myth and the hero’s journey to overcome anything, to be in service… I love this show. I really do. It’s visionary in so many ways and I am happy to be a part of it.”

He’ll return, with the rest of The Mandalorian team, when the series returns to Disney+ in October.