Last Tuesday's episode of Ahsoka, "Fallen Jedi," was helmed by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The Mandalorian director Peter Ramsey. It was an action-packed effort which featured multiple epic lightsaber duels and Hayden Christensen's return as Anakin Skywalker.
Talking to IGN about his widely-praised fourth instalment of the Disney+ series, Ramsey was asked about briefly working with Christensen to shoot Anakin's reunion with Ahsoka Tano in the World Between Worlds.
"He’s a really sweet, low-key guy," the filmmaker says. "He was pretty happy about being there after all this time. It had a lot of meaning for him."
As for how he prepared the Obi-Wan Kenobi star for the scene, Ramsey explains: "We just talked about what it's like for him to be seeing Ahsoka after all this time, that it's a reunion for them. And I just told him, 'It's like you haven't seen your daughter in two years. She'd gone off to college and you're seeing her again and she's like a different person but still your daughter.'"
"On the Rosario side of it," he continued, "she knew what it meant in the story and it was just about selling the idea that she was waking up somewhere really having no clue as to what was going on, not understanding 'am I dead? Am I alive? Am I where I think I could be?' And the way that expression changes at the very end when she sees him and says his name is so sweet and it was just like her turning back the person she was the last time she saw him."
The site put it to Ramsey that there might have been a little bit of The Clone Wars star Matt Lanter's voice in Christensen's "Hello, Snips," a popular fan theory many believe was meant to act as a transition from animation to live-action.
The filmmaker debunked that and also said he played no role in the digital de-ageing of Anakin. "It was a decision made at some point. I don't know," Ramsey admitted. "Maybe it means something."
We're just hours away from learning more about this long-awaited reunion, but the expectation is that Christensen's return as Anakin will have wider ramifications for the wider Star Wars Universe, even if it is just in the afterlife.
Set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka follows the former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.
In addition to Rosario Dawson in the title role, the series stars Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, the late Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll, Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati, Diana Lee Inosanto as Morgan Elsbeth, David Tennant as Huyang, Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Eman Esfandi appearing as Ezra Bridger.
The first four episodes of Ahsoka are now streaming on Disney+.