Actor Taylor Gray and the character he voiced – Ezra Bridger from ‘Star Wars: Rebels’
Star Wars seems to have never been more popular than it is today. Although the success and fan reception of the “new” trilogy has been less that stellar, the various animated series like ‘The Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels’ have been wildly popular. Likewise for the Disney + series ‘The Mandalorian’ which has spun off into the latest series ‘The Book of Boba Fett.‘ Another spin off series that has been announced is ‘Ahsoka’ which will follow the adventures of Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan Ahsoka Tano as she, based on the events in ‘The Mandalorian‘ episode “The Jedi”, is on the hunt for Grand Admiral Thrawn who was last seen in the animated series ‘Star Wars: Rebels‘ when he disappeared with the young Jedi Ezra Bridger. While many fans were disappointed that Ashley Eckstein, the original voice actor who brought Ahsoka Tano to life in ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ series, did not reprise her role in live action, many others were thrilled just to see this fan-favorite character show up and see where her story would lead after the events of ‘Rebels’. Given the fact that she is on the hunt for the powerful Grand Admiral Thrawn, many have speculated that we will end up seeing Ezra Bridger return in the highly anticipated ‘Ahsoka’ series starring Rosario Dawson as the titular character alongside Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren and Ivanna Sakhno as a yet-to-be-named new character.
Naturally, this led to much speculation as to who will play Thrawn and Ezra Bridger in this new live action series. Given that Katee Sackhoff, the voice actor behind ‘The Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels’ Bo Katan, got to play the same character when she showed up in the live action series ‘The Mandalorian’, we can’t help but ask ourselves if it would be possible for Taylor Gray to do a similar crossover and reprise the role of Ezra Bridger in the ‘Ahsoka’ series. In a recent interview for his new film ‘Night Night‘, we had the chance to ask Taylor Gray whether or not he would be interested in bringing Ezra into live action after having voiced the character for 5 seasons on ‘Rebels’. “That is definitely a character I would love to play in live action. I mean, just because my background IS live action. That’s where all my training is. And so the further development of Ezra would only, I feel like, make more sense and go even further into what I have, sort of, in all my character journals for the backstory of this character.” As to whether or not the casting would actually happen, Taylor went on to say: “You never know what they’ll [Star Wars] do with anything, but it’s such an amazing character and I feel so inextricably tied to it that it would be amazing to continue his journey on.” (To listen to the entire interview, just head over to Geek To Me Radio dot com and click on Episode 280 under the “Podcasts” tab or click the YouTube video below.)
Katee Sackhoff as Bo Katan in ‘The Mandalorian’ (left) and in ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ (right).
Many other actors have already said that they’d love to play Ezra Bridger as well including Rahul Kohli (‘Midnight Mass’, ‘iZombie’) and Gabriel Luna (‘Terminator: Dark Fate’, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’). ‘Aladdin’ actor Mena Massoud even went a step further by posting a cryptic picture on Instagram back in March of this year with the caption: “Hey, just so you know, when I escape I won’t hurt any of you.” which fans know is an Ezra Bridger quote from the ‘Rebels’ episode “Stealth Strike”. While this led many fans to speculate that Massoud had been cast as Ezra and this was his coy way of announcing it, the actor later clarified the statement in a September interview with ScreenRant where he said he was “Just manifesting, just manifesting, trying different things.” And with no other official casting announcements being made from the folks at Disney about the ‘Ahsoka’ series, who will play the character of Ezra Bridger is still anyone’s guess. That being said, I do feel that it would be extremely cool to have an actor who is already as invested in the role as Taylor Gray obviously is return to play the character in live action. Given his established working relationship with Dave Filoni, who is both a writer and an executive producer on ‘Ahsoka’, it certainly doesn’t hurt Gray’s chances.
What do YOU think? Who would be the best choice to play Ezra Bridger in live action? Leave us a comment below with your thoughts.
