Grand Admiral Thrawn Actor Lars Mikkelsen on The Changes He'll Make For His Live-Action Debut in STAR WARS: AHSOKA

Star Wars fans are extremely excited that Grand Admiral Thrawn will be making his live-action debut in Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Ahsoka series. It’s even more exciting that the voice actor who played the character in Star Wars: Rebels, Lars Mikkelsen, will reprise the role in live-action.

During a recent interview with Empire, Mikkelsen talked about how he approached the live-action version of the character differently than how he played him in Rebels due to the shift in the medium. He explained:

"I'm not losing the voice, but I am tweaking it into live-action. When you do an animated character, there's a whole melodious approach. When you're there as a real person, that would be just slightly too much."

So the voice is going to be a little different, which isn’t really a big deal. I’m mostly curious to see what he’s going to look like in his live-action form! Mikkelsen went on to talk about the Star Wars villain, saying:

"I love the way he rises through the Empire, and the way he carries himself in that environment to become somebody. And then of course, how can you not like a very clever villain? Thrawn takes the time to understand his opponent's culture, and what they're about. It's lovely to be playing that."

When previously talking about playing the live-action version of Thrawn, Mikkelsen assured fans that they will be getting the same villainous character that they’ve come to love over the years:

"It's hard to get into that without getting into the storytelling, you know, because of course some time has expired between rebels and where we get into the story here. So, and that time what happened in that time has put his mark on him, but in general, he's still the same bloke, mate. You see, you see he's so you're in for, you know, what you hope for?”

The actor went on to share what makes Thrawn such an interesting villain, and that his mind is what makes him a formidable foe for Ahsoka and the other characters:

"That bloke, he doesn't have the force. He's not a Jedi, he's not a superhero of any kind, but he has the brain. He has all of that in that regard. How does he stack up against characters like Ahsoka, Sabine, and all these other people we're going to see and possibly antagonize in the live-action series? I think, I mean, what I mean, his superpower is his mind, which is really and always like seven paces ahead of everybody. And I'm in that sense also ahead of you as an audience, I think. So that's what you expect."

Ahsoka writer, director, and producer Dave Filoni also talked about Thrawn explaining what sets him apart from the iconic Star Wars villain Darth Vader, comparing him to the Sherlock Holmes character, Moriarty:

"The genius of Thrawn is that he's not Darth Vader. He doesn't even try to be. He doesn't have the Force. But he's smart and he's calculating. He's like a Moriarty, he's going to outthink you and out chess move you, so those are the things that I really liked."

There’s a lot of excitement for this character as he’s going to be the big bad of these New Republic era Star Wars projects moving forward. This will all lead to the movie that Filoni and Favreau are developing.