The second season of The Mandalorian has already amassed a solid cast of actors playing familiar roles, but it appears the production is not yet done. Film and TV actor Timothy Olyphant has joined the Disney Plus Star Wars series in an unannounced role.
Although The Mandalorian Season 2 has already wrapped filming, Disney continues to announce new castings at a regular clip. Presumably these actors were already brought onboard and filmed their scenes, and now Disney is starting to build excitement for the season by making these announcements one by one.
Most will know Olyphant for his work on TV in the Western Deadwood or the post-modern Western Justified, so it makes sense that he would join The Mandalorian series, which regularly draws inspiration from Western (and Kurosawa before that) genre. Whether or not Olyphant will play a character that feels similar to his prior work, however, is unclear, but the casting feels ripe for that type of role.
In addition to Olyphant, The Mandalorian Season 2 has also brought on Rosario Dawson to play Ahsoka Tano, brought back Temeura Morrison to play Boba Fett, and let Katee Sackoff jump from voice actor to live action for the role of Bo-Katan. Considering the amount of cast announcements for familiar characters it is possible that Olyphant is also taking on a known Star Wars character, but Disney and the show’s creators are not ready to say who just yet.
Whatever the case may be, the wait for Mandalorian Season 2 won’t be quite as long as some other shows since the production has apparently not been significantly impacted by the current situation. According to Disney, the show is still set to premiere its first Season 2 episode later this year.