THE MANDALORIAN Star Katee Sackhoff Opens Up About How Bo-Katan Role “Broke” Her Confidence

Joining a beloved franchise like Star Wars isn’t as easy as it looks, even for seasoned sci-fi veterans. For Katee Sackhoff, stepping into the live-action armor of Bo-Katan Kryze in The Mandalorian turned out to be one of the most emotionally difficult challenges of her acting career.

Despite voicing the character in animation for years, Sackhoff recently revealed that transitioning to the live-action version shook her confidence to its core.

The revelation came during a candid conversation with her Battlestar Galactica co-star Tahmoh Penikett on her podcast, The Sackhoff Show. It was here that she dropped a surprising confession — she had to hire an acting coach for the first time ever. Penikett was stunned by the news, prompting Sackhoff to open up:

“What had happened was, I lost all my confidence after Mandalorian. All of it.”

For Sackhoff, her acting process had always been instinctual. She explained:

“My style of acting has always just been, ‘Your first instinct is the right instinct, do that. Play the reality of the situation.’ And I’ve never really played a character, you know what I mean?

“Like, I’ve always played [characters who were] two steps removed from myself, in a sense. It always felt grounded in some part of my belly of who I was.”

But Bo-Katan was different. Far removed from Sackhoff’s own personality and emotional core, the role presented an unfamiliar struggle.

“Bo-Katan is nowhere near who I am as a human being. Her life, what she wants — like, I didn’t understand her. I mean, as much as I understood her, I never felt her, in my stomach.

“I never identified with her. I didn’t know how to find her. And it broke me! I started doubting everything about myself. I’m not a strong auditioner on tape, and I was having to put myself on tape.

“I wasn’t booking anything, and for three years, I basically didn’t work. It just destroyed my confidence…”

Realizing something had to change, Sackhoff made a pivotal decision to reset. She hired a new manager who connected her with an acting coach. Rather than teaching her how to act from the ground up, the coach focused on helping her reconnect with her core skills and evolve them to tackle characters that felt more foreign, like Bo-Katan.

Fortunately, she’s now on the other side of that rough chapter and feeling revitalized. As she told Penikett, she’s feeling more like herself again and ready to move forward.

Sackhoff is currently working on a mysterious role in Prime Video’s upcoming Carrie series adaptation, which is now in production.

If you want to revisit Sackhoff’s powerful but hard-fought portrayal of Bo-Katan Kryze, you can stream The Mandalorian on Disney+.