Interview: Author Mary Beth Ellis, Part II
Mary Beth writes the most beautiful and funny essays about Star Wars and she recently wrote a new favorite of mine about Brendan Wayne, who partially plays Din in The Mandalorian. As a Star Wars fan myself, it’s so easy to be in conversation with her about our favorite bounty hunter that our chat went on for a while, so I am going to divide this into sections.
Q: Well I have to say I’m shocked that you’re intrigued by Mando. You have always said you’re a Luke girl, a Kenobi girl. You don’t like the antiheroes.
MBE: That’s the point! I can’t help it, Mando can’t help it. We’re just standing here caught in Dave Filoni and Joseph Campell’s crossfire.
Q: But that’s everybody who watches, pretty much.
MBE: You see what I’m saying. Mando has qualities that transcend personal types. He’s everybody’s type, because his initial merits reflect so much more than just his character. Plus he has room to grow, and he does. We attach to satisfying character fulfillment. It gives us hope.
The whole culture was seduced, male and female, because the first season of The Mandalorian was spoken in the unique language of the American mythos. A whole conversation unfolded in that initial scene, conducted in a very specific form of communication — a cowboy language, a gunslinger language.
I feel close to that when I’m out West, so that’s maybe that’s part of the pull for me. But most Americans are fluent in that language, even if they aren’t consciously aware of it.
You don’t have to be desperately in love with the American Southwest like I am to understand exactly what was going down in that bar. It’s our particular form of myth and it has become bedrocked into part of who we are.
Q: They really did Jedi mind-trick us into buying millions of Baby Yoda dolls.
MBE: And so much more than that, which is what makes Mando, and the whole first scene, brilliant. Character initially established, action scene, and all the visual trimmings of both a western and Star Wars in what, two minutes? All without saying a word, and Baby Yoda doens’t show up for a good half-hour.
The magnificence of the open kind of got lost in the Baby Yoda shock waves, but even with that I remember buzz about the cold open trickling through. And rightly so. I would carry Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni on my shoulders in the Rose Parade just for that. I will never get tired of the first moments of The Mandalorian.
Q: It’s your favorite thing, show don’t tell!
MBE: You remembered! But.. nothing makes a character or scene more offputting faster than screaming at the audience that they’re supposed to be feeling something. It’s amateur, it’s hacky, and it gets to peak cringe in about two seconds. The opposite, the whispering, is extremely potent. Like, the way many women react to Mando — he’s not showing a millimeter of skin —
Q: To the frustration of many.
MBE: Nothing in this world will ever be funnier than the utter forums meltdown after he took off his cape at the Living Waters and then stopped stripping for the rest of the season. I’d have screenshot it for posterity but I was too busy laughing at all the outrage that the man who always keeps his clothes on continued to keep his clothes on.
Now remember that seduction isn’t just about sexual attraction. It’s about persuasion, pulling in, working on the emotions and the mind. “Seduced by the Dark Side,” right? In this case the viewer is seduced into fascination about Mando.
But that’s a form of proof that Mando’s seductive qualities are interwoven with his surroundings and how he chooses to interact with them, even if he just seems to be still. Being still is an action in itself.
Q: The white tree scene!
MBE: Everybody loves the white tree scene! Mando rests against the tree and says nothing, but he’s not really resting against the tree and saying nothing. That was a whole doctorate dissertation in nonverbal communication. My husband doesn’t usually key in on those kinds of moments, but he sat up and pointed at the screen and said, “He’s getting ready.” And I go, “He’s already ready.”
This is all the more important when you can’t read a man’s eyes or face. You’re forced to use your imagination, and your imagination is typically going to default to what’s most tantalizing or meaningful for you within the context of the scene.
And that storytelling decision — helmet stays on, clothes stay on — forces the viewer to think about Mando and try to enter into his mindset when otherwise we’d just scan the facial expression. That’s the best form of character bonding. It happens without us noticing. And every human being has at least some form of awareness of it.
Q: It doesn’t happen by accident.
MBE: Right. So it’s difficult to maintain over the course of three and a half seasons, but when it works, people feel the character’s magnetic pull and might not know exactly why. That’s the psychology at work with Din.
There is tremendous depth to Mando, in his environs and the circumstances of what he’s doing and for what reasons. There’s criticism that this character is just an old trope in new packaging, and the whole show is brains-off television. And sure, you could watch The Mandalorian that way and still enjoy it, and that’s great. But you’re missing so, so much! It’s a failure to examine the prismatic lights of his identity, all the parts of human nature that he reflects.
Q: You told me your favorite part of Din’s character was his integrity. Where do we see that in the prism?
MBE: Oh — his very soul — Din’s integrity is matter of Western honor, of Arthurian knighthood. For example, despite his initially deadened sense of compassion and mercy, he never lies. Even when nobody else would know, even if it means losing everything he ever had. That has immense consequences for complicating Mando as a fleshed-out character.
Q: “Din Djarin, have you ever removed your helmet?”
MBE: He hesitated, didn’t he? But he defaulted to the truth. And when the Armorer tried to honor him with his signet, he says, “No, wait, it wasn’t a noble kill.” Who knew that but Mando, Grogu, and the Mudhorn? Which, by the way, was now dead?
People pass over that element because of the significant discussion that follows about the Jedi. But that refusal revealed a great deal about Mando.
And no one is ever more astounded than Din when he’s double-crossed, even though it happens again and again. He’s always shocked, because for all his faults, a refusal to keep one’s word isn’t in the vocabulary of his ethos. His naivety is a weakness, but it is an admirable one.
Q: But doesn’t he do that himself when he retrieves Grogu after he accepts payment?
MBE: Give me that moral complexity! Hurt me with it!
Q: Most would say that ultimately Mando was in the right.
MBE: In Roman-Latin theology, we say that the ends don’t justify the means. So we don’t set up a prostitution ring to fund a homeless shelter; we have to do it the difficult but right way, up the narrow path.
That’s the tension Mando experiences in “The Sin.” It wasn’t the physical risk of the retrieval or that he missed his little pal. It was disquieting for him to feel his conscience prompted by a bounty and not his spiritual matriarch. He was sitting in the cockpit with the engines running, weighing out the ethics of what he was compelled to do.
He knew exactly what was on the line. He thought that (stuff) through. He had been all along. It wasn’t an emotional impulse — and now we get back to how were were prepared for this moment by his coolheaded behavior in the bar.
You could say, I guess, that Mando should have trotted off to the New Republic and flagged this whole operation instead of, I don’t know, massacring every single bad guy and then walking away with his people’s beskar on his back.
But later we learn that wouldn’t have done any good— so is it justifiable to then become a vigilante? — and anyway, filling out forms in a government office makes for a fairly crap Star Wars show.
Q: Pedro Pascal could make that work.
MBE: Pedro Pascal could make anything work.
Din Djarin in full armor sitting for hours in a DMV waiting room, clutching his deli counter ticket and wondering if he should risk leaving for ten seconds to go to the bathroom. I would watch the hell out of that, actually.
Q: I hope someone with the power to make this happen hears about this.
MBE: You know what, it should be an entire episode dead in the middle of Ahsoka, with zero explanation. We don’t see anyone or anything but Din and the same beige walls for 90 uninterrupted minutes.
But anyway, these questions dovetail nicely with the issues raised in Andor, I think. In “The Sin,” Mando is forced to decide between the code of the bounty hunter and the creed of the Mandalorians. Both are values systems, and he now sees that they are in conflict with one another. He must choose.
He is no longer numb, but what does he do with this new perspective? How does he integrate it with what he’s already been doing right? That is a big part of the push and pull that makes Season 1 work.
But once he makes the decision, there will be no U-turns, just as we saw in “In the Name of Honor.” And you can see it in his walk. The fandom loves to dissect Mando’s walk —
Q: It’s the most discussed walk in Star Wars.
MBE: Full panel discussions at Celebration on Pedro Pascal’s slutty knees and Brendan Wayne’s hips that do not lie, that’s all we want out of Lucasfilm now.
But in this scene, when he blows the door open, the walking was especially significant. Watch how Brendan communicates Mando’s determination through the way he just powers across the screen as he places the detonators.
The way he covers distance is even more purposeful and tenacious than we’ve ever seen it — “I have made my choice, and now the bodies hit the floor however they will. I come out with the kid or I don’t come out at all.”
Q: Is that part of the “more than swagger” element?
MBE: Ah, the circle is now complete. And you know what, that is Brendan Wayne holding the gearshift knob during that scene in the Razor Crest… or I’m pretty sure it’s him. I’m not too great at playing “Who’s In the Armor?”
But I heard the story that Brendan turned down the screen test on this unbelievable role because he had committed to taking his daughter to college. And a lot of realizations fell into place: “This one has his priorities straight. There are real-life father bonds and the Western code in play here. He’s given his word, and he’s taking care of his own.“
So no wonder he could get into Mando’s head from the jump. He understood how he thought in a lot of ways. Brendan Wayne wasn’t going to back down on that if George actual Lucas tried to cram the part down his throat.
That is swagger. That is a real man. Nothing Brendan Wayne could ever say in an interview or social media post could communicate his character like that action did.
My husband has these qualities— that’s why I married him! Men like this don’t need weapons or armor to demonstrate true badassery and qualities that we should see more of. I think that dimension of Din was 90% of the way there before ever put on the gauntlets.
Q: Now I wanted to ask you to expand more on your observations about Din’s humor– I know you’re working on something about this but…
MBE: Sure, I can speak to this a little. Just by listening to interviews and catching his social media as it passes by, and seeing how he plays what is required of Din, both Brendan Wayne and Pedro have an endearing sense of humor. They have different approaches to it, definitely, but they blend well for Mando’s dry wit. And of course Filoni and Favreau are there, plus whoever’s directing.
Q: The stop in the street when Baby Yoda has the “Yes” button —
MBE: Normally I really can’t stand physical humor. One molecule of that goes a very long way. But I’ll allow it because that was timed to perfection. I am utterly convinced that whoever is in charge of making Baby Yoda act like an actual toddler hasn’t just raised or interacted with a kid that age. I think they have an actual toddler on set and they’re consulting with him.
Q: I had so much fun talking to you today. Thank you.
MBE: My pleasure, and have fun editing out all the screaming.
