Star Wars: Ahsoka Casts Its Live-Action Ezra Bridger
It has been announced that Eman Esfandi is going to be the live-action Ezra Bridger for Star Wars: Ahsoka.
Star Wars: Ahsoka, the live-action Mandalorian spinoff coming to the Disney+ streaming service, has cast yet another crucial cast member, with Eman Esfandi reportedly playing Ezra Bridger. Like Ahsoka (who will again be played by Rosario Dawson), Ezra was one of the main characters in Star Wars: Rebels, the animated series that aired for four seasons from 2014 to 2018, that told the tale of a group of Rebels battling the fledgling Empire. The casting of Esfandi is quite exciting, and it does give us a glimpse at how the Ahsoka storyline may play out.
With Disney’s D23 Expo in full swing, rumors and official announcements of upcoming projects have been coming in full force. With Star Wars: Ahsoka already in production, and set to premiere on March 12, 2023, we will likely get a lot more information about the series very soon. We already know that Hayden Christensen will appear as Darth Vader in the series, as will Mary Elizabeth Winstead, but the casting of Esfandi and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, another Rebels character, likely confirms a continuation of the Star Wars: Rebels storyline.
As ComicBook.com points out, in the finale of Star Wars: Rebels, the Jedi-in-training Ezra seemingly sacrificed himself in a battle with the Empire’s Grand Admiral Thrawn. Ahsoka and Sabine believe he is still alive, however, and embark on a search for him. Thrawn already got a mention in season two of The Mandalorian, when Rosario Dawson‘s character revealed that she had been searching for him. Star Wars: Ahsoka could tie in the Rebels storyline nicely, with Ahsoka and Sabine continuing their search for Ezra, which could lead them all to a final showdown with Thrawn.
Star Wars Rebels, The Mandalorian, and Star Wars: Ahsoka were all co-created by Dave Filoni, who has become the unofficial “spiritual successor” to George Lucas at Lucasfilm in the Disney era. Filoni worked with Lucas, who was a mentor of sorts to him, and he holds an affinity for classic Star Wars lore, even those storylines, and characters that are no longer considered canon by Disney and Lucasfilm. He created the Ahsoka Tano character and brought Grand Admiral Thrawn over from “Legacy” status into the new canon, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Ahsoka series will likely have strong ties to Rebels, which he admits still means a lot to him.
The Ezra Bridger character was voiced by Taylor Gray in Rebels, but the actor is not involved with the Ahsoka series, at least not yet. This will not only be Eman Esfandi’s first involvement with the Star Wars universe, but it will easily be his biggest role to date. He started his acting career professionally in 2017, appearing mostly in short films. He appeared in the Robert Rodriguez horror film Red 11 and had a small part in the Best Picture Oscar-nominated King Richard. His newest film, the military drama The Inspection, is currently on the film festival circuit and hits theaters later this year. If Esfandi has indeed been cast, he isn’t letting on. His Instagram account has made no mention of it, although fans are commenting on the news on his unrelated posts.
