Jennifer Beals didn’t know she was in The Book Of Boba Fett, just that it was a Star Wars thing

Despite playing an alien with tentacles coming out of her head, Jennifer Beals didn't feel the need to push for too many details on The Book Of Boba Fett

Aux News Boba Fett
Jennifer Beals didn’t know she was in The Book Of Boba Fett, just that it was a Star Wars thing
The Book Of Boba Fett Photo: Lucasfilm

Disney’s dedication to secrecy is famous at this point, with Mickey Mouse tightly controlling any and all information that comes out about his stuff and Marvel and Star Wars (and probably National Geographic, but it doesn’t come up as often). Actors being unable to talk about the Disney thing they’re working on as extremely common, but it’s less common to hear about an actor who doesn’t even know what the thing they’re working on is—and not in a Gwyneth Paltrow way where the actor just does so many Marvel things that they don’t really care.

That’s apparently what happened to The L Word’s Jennifer Beals, though. She popped up recently in the trailer for The Book Of Boba Fett as a Twi’lek (one of those aliens with the head-tentacles that Jabba The Hutt would have dancing around). Beals knew she was in a Star Wars, certainly, but in a conversation with Variety, she revealed that she didn’t actually know what the Star Wars thing was.

“Even when I first stepped onto the set,” she told Variety, inadvertently setting up a rhyme, “I didn’t realize I was in The Book of Boba Fett. I just knew that I was getting to be part of this story.” Beals says she “knew about the character,” so it’s not like director Robert Rodriguez just said “put on this head-tentacles and be in a Star Wars,” but it’s still surprising to hear that she was willing to do that without really needing to know what she was putting on head-tentacles for. (Variety’s Adam B. Vary points out that they’re called “lekku,” which we did know, but he deserves credit for also knowing it.)

Beyond that, Beals is, unsurprisingly, unable to share too many other details about her Book Of Boba Fett character. She pointedly did not answer a question about whether or not her character is related in any way to fellow Twi’lek Bib Fortuna—the former Jabba lackey who got merc’d by Boba Fett and Fennec Shand in the end of season two of The Mandalorian—but she did acknowledge that her character appears to be better off than most Twi’leks shown in Star Wars.

We’ll know more about what’s going on when Book Of Boba Fett premieres on Disney+ on December 29, and if you’d like to know more about this Boba Fett guy, we’ve got you covered.

73 Comments

  • tmage-av says:

    She and Gwyneth Paltrow should get together and compare notes.

    • recognitions-av says:

      She probably knows her, seeing as her co-star of many years is Gwyneth’s cousin.

    • kinjacaffeinespider-av says:

      How’s that going to go?
      JB: “I don’t know which Star War I’m in.”
      GP: “Want to buy a candle that smells like my hoo-hah?”
      JB: “Wait…what?”

  • laurenceq-av says:

    But, to the average person, that level of granular detail isn’t something they think much or care about, even if they’re appearing in the show.  From the article, all it seems like is that she didn’t know the title of the show, which they probably didn’t even have finalized during filming.  Talk about a non-story.

  • gildie-av says:

    Here’s a little tip to help actors who just took a damn job and don’t know how to handle Star Wars nerds asking questions about deep lore: If someone asks if your character is related to some other character vaguely like them, the answer is yes. Always yes. Everyone in Star Wars is always related. 

  • chris-finch-av says:

    This is a really weird spin on the fact that most of this stuff is shot with secrecy, that plenty of people working on these projects only know they’re working on “untitled Marvel/Star Wars project,” and just do the work with the pages they’re given. It’s very typical.

  • igotlickfootagain-av says:

    I haven’t been told I was in ‘The Book of Boba Fett’. Does that mean I might have a part?

  • capeo-av says:

    The title and gist of this story is not true to the interview it’s shamelessly cribbing from. Beals says she “knew about the character,” so it’s not like director Robert Rodriguez just said “put on this head-tentacles and be in a Star Wars,” but it’s still surprising to hear that she was willing to do that without really needing to know what she was putting on head-tentacles for.She knew the script and story. She did know “what she was putting on the head-tentacles for.” She talks about the story and character prep before filming. The scripts would have project names, not the actual title, which might not have been even settled upon at that time. You take one quip and make it sound like she had no idea what she was doing, didn’t actually read a script and just showed up and said, “Hey, I have no clue why I’m here. I got a call about Star Wars, so slap those tentacles on and hold up some cue cards.”

  • bloggymcblogblog-av says:

    She’s just a Ryloth girl on a Saturday night!She’s a Twilek, Twilek I know!

  • supersonic8811-av says:

    This is somewhat confusing to me as I know 4 people that worked on the crew of BoBF (a camera operator, two electricians, and a grip). Everyone of them have been wearing BoBF crew swag for months. Every one of them knew what they were working on the entire time they were on the project, including when they were originally hired. None of them showed up to the set and just started working, having no idea what the project was.

    How does an actor that I assume has speaking role have no idea what the project is they’re working on?  I worked on a George R.R. Martin produced project a few months ago, that hadn’t even been revealed on Deadline or Variety when I was hired, but I still knew what the job was when they offered it to me.

    • surprise-surprise-av says:

      Apparently, Lucasfilm has all but confirmed that all of the footage in the trailers is from episodes one and two. With the vast majority being from the first half of episode one because there’s some kind of Grogu style twist in the second half of the episode, Beals is in a lot of the footage in the trailers. That makes me think most of her scenes are in that first half, which means she probably shot some of the earliest footage.

      The Book of Boba Fett started filming last November. Lucasfilm tried to keep it under wraps but news that something Boba Fett related was in production leaked almost immediately and there was even speculation that either Din’s story ended in Season Two or Din’s story was paused (which kind of came true) and Boba Fett was the titular Mandalorian that Season Three would focus on. It’s completely possible – especially if she’s indifferent to Star Wars and wasn’t really aware of what the fuck a Boba Fett is – that Beals just knew she’d signed on for what amounts to a small guest role in the first episode of a Star Wars project being helmed by Robert Rodriguez.

    • laurenceq-av says:

      The article basically boils down to Beals didn’t know the title of the show.  Which is entirely plausible and not remotely interesting.

  • starvenger88-av says:

    “she did acknowledge that her character appears to be better off than most Twi’leks shown in Star Wars.”So presumably she could have it all and didn’t need to dance for her life. 

  • notjames316-av says:

    the former Jabba lackey who got merc’d by Boba FettThank you thank you thank you. Finally, someone spelled that word correctly*. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people spell it “murked”, which is ridiculous, or just not have any idea that it comes from the word “mercenary”.*I gather the proper spelling would be “mercked”, but that just looks plain weird.

    • henrygordonjago-av says:

      Not to be confused with “Mercked” which refers to “being beaten to death with a medical textbook”.

      • kinjacaffeinespider-av says:

        I thought that was when you laid out cocaine across a map of the United States and tried to see how far you made it.

    • kinjacaffeinespider-av says:

      Yeah, can you believe these fucking people who roam around the universe not knowing things?Assholes.

  • hulk6785-av says:

    *looks at header photo*I have the weirdest boner.

  • kingofmadcows-av says:

    That’s Jennifer Beals? From Flashdance? Which came out in 1983.

  • TRT-X-av says:

    Oh okay so the one Twilek we saw in the OT was a slave/dancer so they’re all dancers now in this.Sure, okay.

  • nerdherder2-av says:

    Here’s some head tentacles, go be in a Star War

  • nerdherder2-av says:

    The same Jennifer Beals who revealed that woman can remove their bras without removing their shirts? Blew my teenaged mind and I still think it’s tge sexiest thing ever

  • schmapdi-av says:

    I confuse Jennifer Beals with Jennifer Grey, and also Jessica Beals.  It took me like 10 minutes to figure out who we were talking about. 

  • kinjacaffeinespider-av says:

    This has been another exciting chapter of The Book Of Beals. The L word isn’t for “lost” as Jennifer Beals knows where she is most of the time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Share Tweet Submit Pin