Over the last weeks that filming has trucked along on the new Disney Plus streaming Star Wars series The Mandalorian, I have seen a few familiar characters popping up often. Usually when I see the Mandalorian we see a guy with the Mando armor on his legs and the rest of the costume isn’t there, but he has some kind of eye-line piece attached to his back which is either because Pedro is a lot taller and will have a helmet on, or the least likely explanation I’ve considered which is it notes the height of gun on his back. But each time I’ve seen who I believe to be the Mandalorian himself, I’ve seen these two companions with him in the midst of the action.

The first companion is a dark-skinned male who totally pumps iron. He wears a beige/brownish shirt with work pants, boots, and suspenders. We have jokingly dubbed him The Suspenderalorian because he rocks the suspenders in a galaxy far, far away as well as here and now. When it comes to this character, we cannot say for certain that we’re seeing the actor or the actor’s body double. We can’t say if that is the rumored Carl Weathers character (if that story pans out like the Pascal one has apparently) or if he’s a different character altogether. I do believe I’ve seen this character with a helmet and jacket on in some earlier scenarios, but I cannot be 100% sure because when we saw him with the helmet, we had not seen him without it yet, so it didn’t stand out to us.

For what it is worth, he has really ripped muscular arms like he would most certainly fight The Predator. And like I said before, if Carl Weathers isn’t in Star Wars, why is Carl Weathers not in Star Wars? If it is wrong, please let the campaign for Carl Weathers in Star Wars begin here and now. But we also think it would be a poor assumption to assume there will be only one dark-skinned actor in the entire show. That said, we are open to the idea Favreau showed us Willrow Hood’s ice cream maker because this series is really Willrow’s Revenge: A Star Wars Story.

You can check out our podcast where we discussed Carl Weathers here:

https://omny.fm/shows/now-this-is-podcasting/episode-248-making-star-wars-is-back

Check out some images of these two characters below:

The last three photos are really hard to make out and are from a few weeks back now. But it may be the same character with a helmet and jacket on or it could just be an extra of similar stature. We will present the photos and let you decide if they’re connected or not for now.

The second character we think is part of the Mando’s team is a woman usually seen with The Mandalorian and The Suspenderalorian. She has chin-length hair, with a very modern cut. A few times we thought she actually might be director Deborah Chow in black. But we saw the hood go on and off, which means it is pretty unlikely it is Deborah Chow and she is usually seen with the The Mando and Captain Suspenders. We also think we have seen her potentially in the custody of Death Troopers and the Imperial Remnant in a sequence shot on Monday afternoon.

The Hollywood Reporter just put a story out saying that MMA superstar Gina Carano has joined the cast of the series. She might be who we are actually looking at in these photos right now next to old suspenders.

We should note that we are seeing a very brief glimpse of this show and we might be “making a mountain out of a San Hill,” as they say in a Star War (they actually don’t say that). But we are just laying out the things we keep seeing and hearing about. On the newest episode of “Now, This is Podcasting!” we got an e-mail about the initial scoop we had regarding the series using a lot of CGI with pre-rendered effects they could see in camera. But we’re at the physical location, not the soundstage-style other location. That said, this week we have seen the sets entirely encapsulated by blue screen for privacy at times but also because these sets are going to be extended greatly. It has been interesting watching them reposition the giant screens when the light of the day shifts and they begin to cast shadows.

To illustrate my point about the blue screen work, here are two bonus pictures. The people in blue are Stormtroopers. Some Stormtroopers had blue ponchos to hide their costumes and others had black ponchos. We don’t know if there was a reason for it or if we were seeing a sociological experiment unfolding before our eyes but the blue poncho and the black ponchos didn’t see to go with one another. The guy walking in front of the Stormtroopers may be The Mando’s double or an entirely new character. When we saw him again (we think), he had a black poncho on to hide his costume. At a glance he reminds me of Jango Fett meets Alexsandr Kallus.

The Mandalorian will premiere on the Disney Plus streaming service in 2019 along with Star Wars: The Clone Wars and a Cassian Andor series about his spy work before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Keep checking back for updates on all things making Star Wars.

When Fav and Filoni say hello. pic.twitter.com/2jMKRHFekp — Jason Ward (@MakingStarWars) November 13, 2018