Eman Esfandi cast in the Ahsoka show as Star Wars: Rebels‘ Ezra Bridger
Esfandi will star in the Disney+ series as former Jedi-in-training Ezra, last seen in animated form in the Rebels finale
Aux News Ezra Bridger
Dave Filoni’s complete tactical envelopment of the wider Star Wars universe—after years of steadily cultivating his position from deep within the franchise’s animated TV foothills—has reached a new milestone today, as THR reports that Eman Esfandi has joined the upcoming Disney+ show Ahsoka as Ezra Bridger, the teen hero of Filoni’s 2010's Star Wars cartoon, Rebels.
Esfandi is a relative newcomer to Hollywood acting, although he did pick up a small credit in last year’s Will Smith Oscar-winner (and, then, well, y’know) King Richard. He’ll be taking over a role that was originated in voice acting form by Taylor Gray, and joining Rosario Dawson, who first played the role of the series’ titular former Padawan in an episode of The Mandalorian.
As to Ezra, he’s, well…a pretty standard Star Wars kid protagonist, honestly. Plucky, headstrong, Force sensitive—and mostly existing, at least at first, to serve as a kid viewpoint character for viewers of Rebels, which kicked off on Disney XD back in 2014. (In that regard, he’s not all that different from Ahsoka herself, who was introduced as a kid sidekick for Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi when Filoni launched his Clone Wars movie and subsequent TV show way back in 2008.) Ezra later got fleshed out over the course of the show’s four seasons, of course—picking up, for instance, a weird quasi-mentorship from renegade Sith Darth Maul—but he ends the series as a pretty typical Jedi—sacrificing himself to ensure that a threat to the galaxy remains contained. (Space whales are also involved.) Ahsoka will presumably resolve that cliffhanger (at least in passing) as it continues to mine the work that Filoni’s been doing on the franchise for decades at this point for its live-action version of the character’s exploits.
We’ll presumably know even more about Ahsoka after tomorrow, when Star Wars is expected to have its time to shine during the franchise’s big morning panel at Disney’s D23 panel.
One more interesting wrinkle from this casting: Mena Massoud, star of Disney’s live-action Aladdin, has responded to the news, noting that he’s mostly just happy now that the many rumors that have swirled around him playing Ezra in the show have now subsided. (He also acknowledges that he did tape at least one audition for the part.)
11 Comments
(Space whales are also involved.)Such a great sentence to deploy with a minimum of context.
I still don’t know how Thrawn and Ezra survived the jump to hyperspace, the space whales broke the windows when they were Cthulhu-monster enveloping Thrawn. Anyway I’m assuming that Erza and Thrawn spent their years in the Unknown Regions as a mis-matched roommates with comical misunderstandings and drawing a white line down the middle of the Star Destroyer to see whose half was theirs, etc. etc.
Filoni seems like a nice fella and all, but it’s hard to get worked up about his creations. I’m glad it worked for kids and kids at heart.
Judging by fans, it’s not hard at all to get worked up about his creations! Or anything Star Wars related! But then, that’s Star Wars fans for ya…
I like Filloni and lots of his ideas but that Ezra kid always sucked.
Much like Rebels itself, Ezra became much interesting after the second season finale.
I would agree. The character graduated from really sucks to just kinda sucks by the end of the series. The other characters were good fun. Maybe his years with the space whales or Thrawn’s prisoner or whatever he will be interesting as an adult. I just really thought whiny young boy jedi really not the place they needed to go AGAIN.
I don’t think anyone has ever been more enamored of their own original characters than Dave Filoni.
I mean, Rebels past season 1 is no more a kid thing than the rest of the series.
Does the Star Wars universe really need a Luke expy while Luke is still around? Or at all?
Aesthetically at least, this is great casting. Almost looks like Esfandi was the human model for Ezra in the TV show.