According to weapons master Emily Swallow, the script for Star Wars’ “The Book of Boba Fett” had to be massively rewritten

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There are many challenges in producing a show like The Book of Boba Fett or The Mandalorian in the Star Wars universe. From scheduling conflicts to elaborate and expensive sets, you need the patience of a Jedi to see the show through to the end. However, one challenging aspect of the shows – the fact that half the cast wears helmets the entire time – turned out to be a boon for the writers, who had wanted a little more flexibility in post-production.

During the Mandalorian cast reunion panel at MCM London in May 2024, Emily Swallow, who played the weapons master in The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, explained that the iconic helmets often made it difficult to hear what the other actors were saying. “We need that connection in the scenes. It wouldn’t seem the same. You can’t see our lip movements – it wouldn’t seem the same if we were kind of guessing what the other one was saying. It wouldn’t have the right energy. There’s still a timing. There’s still a connection to it.”

But the actors’ helmets and obscured faces had a positive side, as Swallow said it allowed her to make some significant changes to her lines even after she’d already delivered them. “On my episode of The Book of Boba Fett, I spent three or four hours in an ADR session – which, if you don’t know, stands for Additional Dialogue Recording and means you have to record things after you’ve already shot them – because they changed so many lines. That’s what you can do when you can’t see someone’s mouth open.”

While she didn’t elaborate on what exactly was changed between filming and her entering the ADR booth, it’s interesting to know that the writers of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett had the freedom to change things so late in the game.

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