With a show as secretive as “The Mandalorian,” it’s hard to get confirmations on things that are not clarified in the closing credits. Case in point, who exactly played Luke Skywalker in the season 2 finale? The credits list Max Lloyd Jones as “Double for Jedi,” and before that the credits mention one Mark Hamill as having something to do with the show. It is only now that showrunner Jon Favreau confirmed Hamill actually was on set to shoot his de-aged cameo.
READ MORE: ‘The Book Of Boba Fett’ Spinoff Announced In ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finale
While on Good Morning America this past week, Favreau finally talked about the reveals of season 2. “We started off the whole series with the Baby Yoda reveal – with the Grogu reveal – that was a secret that everybody was really blown away by,” Favreau said. “Part of that is not telling too many people, not having merchandise that’s being tooled up and announced and everything. And then the very last episode having Mark Hamill actually on set filming and us using whatever technology we had available to de-age him and try to make him look as much like he did in the old films.”
Despite the casting of both Ahsoka, Bo-Katan and Boba Fett leaking prior to the season 2 premiere, Hamill’s cameo as Luke was kept a secret until the episode air, something that shocked Favreau. “It was very tricky because it’s very hard to keep a secret nowadays, especially with ‘Star Wars’ because people are so curious about it,” the showrunner added. “And there are so many people involved with the process with visual effects finishing, making it, filming it, the studios everything. Every piece of casting leaked, and we were so scared right up until it aired that our surprise cameo was gonna leak too.”
Hamill himself took to Twitter to celebrate how his cameo never leaked, writing “The fact that we were able to keep my involvement a secret for over a year with no leaks is nothing less than a miracle. A real triumph for spoiler-haters everywhere!”
Now the de-aging/CGI itself is pretty controversial and some argued it’s not great (you might even read that in our review of that final season two episode). Now a deepfake video has come out comparing the two. We’ll leave it to you to decide which one is better.
Below, the GMA interview with Jon Favreau.
