There’s a brand new Senator Bail Organa within the galaxy.
The function of Princess Leia’s adoptive father was recast within the second season of the hit Star Wars sequence “Andor.”
Benjamin Bratt formally stepped into the function rather than Jimmy Smits within the sixth episode that premiered on Disney+ Tuesday.
Creator Tony Gilroy instructed Leisure Weekly that they did not get Smits, 69, to return as Bail.
“We couldn’t work it out,” stated Gilroy, 68. “The scheduling didn’t work out. We really tried hard, but he wasn’t available and couldn’t make it.”
“Bringing back legacy characters is really complicated,” the filmmaker added. “It’s very expensive. It’s very, who’s working when. A lot of effort went into it, but we just couldn’t work it out scheduling wise.”
Gilroy added to ScreenRant, “It’s really hard to bring legacy characters back for a whole variety of reasons. Money and scheduling and I mean, he [Smits] just wasn’t available. It didn’t work out.”
“He was doing his other show and we were under the gun and they couldn’t work it out. They just couldn’t work it out. Believe me, we really tried, but it couldn’t happen,” Gilroy stated.
Smits was busy capturing his CBS present “East New York” throughout the filming of “Andor” Season 2.
The actor made his debut within the Star Wars franchise in “Episode II: Attack of the Clones” (2002). He performed Bail once more in “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” (2005), “Rogue One” (2016) and the Disney+ miniseries “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (2022).
Bail was first referenced in “Episode IV: A New Hope” (1977), by which he’s killed when the Dying Star blows up his residence planet Alderaan.
Gilroy instructed EW that LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy got here up with the concept to solid Bratt, 61, because the senator.
“It was just a brilliant idea. He’s a wonderful human being and really eager and beloved on set and really happy about what he does,” stated Gilroy.
The Oscar-nominated director additionally shared that Bratt’s transient look in Episode 6 of “Andor” Season 2 was “so people will get the conversation out of the way until the next week when he really starts to work.”
“It’s one of those situations where I want to do something simple,” Gilroy stated. “We don’t do many things that are unnecessary, but it’s like, ‘Let’s get him in here now so people can discuss it for a week and get it out of their system and then he can come back to really work.’ I didn’t want the guy’s work to be confused with his introduction.”
“Andor” stars Diego Luna as Cassian Andor in his journey from thief to insurgent spy.
The sequence is ready a number of years earlier than the occasions of “Rogue One,” which explains how the Rise up steal the plans to the Dying Star which they destroy in “A New Hope.”
New episodes of “Andor” Season 2 come out Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+.
