Star Wars' The Book of Boba Fett had massive script re-writes according to the Armorer actor Emily Swallow
Sometimes those clunky helmets are a curse, other times they're a boon
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There are plenty of challenges when making a show like The Book of Boba Fett or The Mandalorian in the Star Wars universe. From scheduling conflicts to elaborate and expensive set pieces, you need the patience of a Jedi to see it to the end. However, one challenging aspect of the shows – the fact that half the cast is wearing helmets all the time – turned out to be a boon to the writers who wanted a bit more flexibility in post-production.
During the Mandalorian cast reunion panel at MCM London in May 2024, Emily Swallow, who played the Armorer in The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, explained that the iconic helmets often made it difficult to hear what other actors were saying. “We need that connection in the scenes. It wouldn’t play the same. You can’t see our lips move – it wouldn’t play the same if we were sort of guessing what the other one was saying. It wouldn’t have the right energy. There is still a timing to it. There’s still a connection to it.”
The cast’s helmets and obscured faces had a positive side, though, as Swallow said it allowed for some significant changes to her lines even after she had delivered them. “My episode of The Book of Boba Fett, I spend three or four hours in an ADR session – which, if you don’t know, stands for Additional Dialogue Recording, and its when you have to record stuff after you’ve already shot it – because they changed so many of the lines. Which you can do when you can’t see somebody’s mouth open.”
While she didn’t go into detail about what exactly got changed between filming and when she stepped into the ADR booth, it is interesting to know that the writers in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett had the freedom to switch things up so late in the game.
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