Temuera Morrison is speaking out on The Book of Boba Fett, joking his helmeted bounty hunter talks “far too much” in the Star Wars spinoff. The series from creator Jon Favreau and showrunner Robert Rodriguez goes under the helmet of the typically taciturn Boba, who had little screentime and even fewer lines in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and 1983’s Return of the Jedi. No longer a hired gun after his return in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, the Disney+ spinoff finds Fett doing a lot of speaking as Daimyo, a crime boss lording over Jabba the Hutt’s empire on Tatooine.
“I was not very successful, I was hoping not to say as much as I have already in the first two episodes,” Morrison said in an interview with NME. “I speak far too much. In fact, in the beginning, I was trying to pass my lines on to Ming-Na [Wen]. I said: ‘Excuse me director, I really feel that Ming-Na should say these lines, ’cause I wanna stay mysterious. I wanna stay quiet.'”
But Wen, who plays Fett’s consigliere, Master Assassin Fennec Shand, “caught on” to what Morrison was up to. “He wasn’t just trying to be a very generous actor — which he is — he was just trying to parlay some of the work to me (laughs).”
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While Favreau was away in Atlanta, Morrison recalled phoning staff writer Noah Kloor about cutting down some of Fett’s lines to maintain that mystique.
“Sometimes, I’d say [to Favreau], ‘I think this is too much, I think this is too much,'” he said. “I said: ‘Noah, this scene tomorrow. I’m talking too much! This Boba Fett doesn’t talk this much. Look, I’ve got all these paragraphs. I think we should get rid of it and Jon’s going to Atlanta so don’t tell him!'”
He continued, “Then, that morning on set, I get a call from Atlanta: ‘Jon wants you to say all that dialogue. We’ll cut it out later.’ (laughs) So he was even keeping an eye on us from all areas.”
Because the series is looking at the man beneath the armor, using flashbacks to reveal what happened to Boba after escaping the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi, “I had to start talking I guess,” Morrison said. “We had to fill in the gaps and give out a little bit of information… But yes, I think I did speak a bit too much.”
New episodes of The Book of Boba Fett premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.
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