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The Mandalorian season 2 is jam-packed with cameos. Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni showed up recently and a certain Bo-Katan has even made a belated live-action debut. Heck, half of the Deadwood cast – including Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth – have appeared. But Chapter 11 has an impossibly secret cameo featuring the main actor in the rebooted Star Wars Battlefront series – and it involves a Mon Calamari’s nostrils, of all things.
Janina Gavankar, who has previous in a galaxy far, far away as Iden Versio in Star Wars Battlefront 2, had a small but significant role in handling a practical puppet during the scenes on Trask in The Mandalorian season 2, episode 3.
“There is a Mon Calamari who puts their hands on their hips. That’s [special effects artist] Frank Ippolito who’s inside that rig. He made that headpiece and it takes two puppeteers to animate it,” Gavankar explained to IGN. “And they needed a second puppeteer to just handle the nostrils of this character. And [Ippolito] called me and he said, ‘Do you want to come puppeteer the nostrils of this Mon Calamari?’”
So the surly alien, who worked on Mando’s Razor Crest once it was shipped out of the harbour by an AT-AT crane, has its nostrils operated by Iden Versio herself. Of course.
Brilliantly, there’s another minor – but seemingly coincidental – tie-in to Star Wars Battlefront in that episode. It’s revealed that Ahsoka Tano is on the planet Corvus – which is also the name of Versio’s ship in the Battlefront series. It’s like poetry. It rhymes.
For a larger look at the cameos and references in Chapter 11, check out our list of The Mandalorian season 2, episode 3 Easter eggs.
