If you haven’t watched The Mandalorian, Chapter 11: the Heiress yet, stop reading right now and go watch it.  It’s ok, we’ll wait.

I think that we all can admit, while watching Chapter 11 of The Mandalorian, that when three blue clad mandos land on the pirate fishing vessel, that was pretty cool. Then, when they proceeded to kill all of the Quarren and rescue Din Djarin and the Child from the jaws of the pirate’s pet Mamacore we all quietly cheered. It’s safe to say, however, that we all, collectively, gave a shriek of pure joy when the leader of those mandos lifted off her Nite Owl helmet to reveal that she was, in fact, Bo-Katan! What makes it even more cool is that she was being played by the same actress who gave Bo-Katan her voice in The Clone Wars and Rebels animated television shows.

I became aware of Katee Sackhoff after she played Starbuck in SYFY’s 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot. I have to admit that when I had heard that they were going to take the cigar smoking, hard drinking, womanizing Starbuck (as played by Dirk Benedict) from 1978 and make his character a woman, I was skeptical.  That is, I was skeptical right up until she punched Colonel Tigh in the face.  At that point, I was a fan.

Ever since then, every time I’ve encountered her in various television shows, I’ve noticed that she tends to be cast in the role of strong female characters. Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, Vic Moretti in Longmire, Mack Wilson in 2036 Origin Unknown, and our favorite, Bo-Katan Kryze in multiple Star Wars television shows, just to name a few.  Now, she has the honor of also being one of the few actors who get to play the live action version of an animated character that they have voiced.

How that came about is a bit of good luck for her and, as it turns out, for us as well. In an Entertainment Tonight interview,

(Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiwA0ebw11k&feature=emb_title) Katee said that she had mentioned to Dave Filoni that it would be really cool to have Bo-Katan show up in his new live action television show, after she had heard that The Mandalorian was in development. According to her, Filoni only said that “you never know.”

Some time later she was invited to a meeting with Jon Favreau who offered her the chance to reprise her role as Bo-Katan in live action.

“It’s been the hardest secret of my life.” Katee told Entertainment Tonight, “It’s been even harder for my father who is such a massive fan, and loves his facebook.”

She goes on to explain that Bo-Katan has been an important part of her life and career, having been the character that she has played the longest and is also an important part of Mandalorian culture and history. She would know, after all Bo-Katan is a character that Katee Sackhoff knows well, having been the voice actor for the character since 2012 when she was introduced in the fourth season of The Clone Wars.  She was the sister of the pacifist ruler of Mandalore, Duchess Satine, but she did not share her sister’s point of view.

Bo-Katan was the leader of the elite, all female, group of warriors called the Nite Owls and later she was a lieutenant of the Death Watch splinter group who were trying to preserve the warrior heritage of the Mandalorians.

She fought beside Pre Vizsla and, as it turns out, Darth Maul to take back Mandalore from her sister’s teachings.  They succeeded, but when Maul then challenged Vizsla for the DarkSaber and won, his rule threw Mandalore into a civil war.  It was Bo-Katan who pleaded with the Galactic Republic to help defeat Maul. Afterward, she would become the Regent of Mandalore for a short time. Eventually, Bo-Katan would take her place as the proper ruler of Mandalore when the DarkSaber was presented to her by Sabine Wren.

Following the events shown at the end of Season One of The Mandalorian, and again in Chapter 11, the question is how did Moff Gideon get his hands on the DarkSaber and what’s going to happen to him when Bo-Katan finds him?

With hope, these questions will be answered in future episodes.

Katee Sackhoff was inducted into the Mandalorian Mercs as an Honorary Member on April 29, 2012 by Canada’s Vhetin’Ade and Hett’ciri Clans.