Scottish actor Rory McCann, best known for playing the burly brute The Hound on HBO’s Game of Thrones, will replace late actor Ray Stevenson for a second season of Star Wars show Ahsoka, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Stevenson played the hulking former Jedi known as Baylan Skoll in the Disney+ series. He died after a brief illness in May 2023, three months before the series premiered. The actor was a fan favorite, thanks to his resonate voice, humor and roles in Punisher: War Zone, the Thor movies and TV’s Rome.
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It is unclear when the new season is to begin shooting or who will be directing. Dave Filoni was the showrunner of season one, and is returning in the same capacity.
Rory McCann is a great choice but those are big boots to fill as Ray Stevenson brought something special to the role.
I also sense that while this isn’t what they had in mind, whatever he’s looking for would be expected to change him.
Absolutely true, and tragic that he died, but I’m glad to see they’re re-casting instead of dropping the character.
The end of season 1 suggested Skoll plays a very important part of the overarching plot of the series. I think dropping the character was out of the question.
Definitely was. The question was whether they would simply recast, use CGI (was always unlikely), or put a mask on him. They still might do the latter, but that’s very unlikely now since they got the Hound, who looks enough like Stevenson
Absolutely. That said, I can’t believe they made such a good casting call for this impossible situation. That character fucking rocks.
For a short moment I giggled imagining what would have happened if they had cast Kevin McKidd instead, and added the line “How do you know this about her?” somewhere.
