“I don’t know if an animatronic puppet like Grogu would exist in another series,” says the ‘showrunner’ of fiction whose third season begins on Wednesday
He recognized last Tuesday Jon Favreau (New York, 56 years old), in a discussion at the Projections cinema in front of hundreds of students from the Madrid Film School, who had never studied at one. “So don’t use my answers in tests because they won’t work for you,” he joked. He will not have been trained in such an institution, but it is undeniable that the director and screenwriter did not need it. He screwed up the industry through acting, with roles in movies like ‘Rudy. Challenge to glory’ (1993), ‘PCU’ (1994) or ‘Very Bad Things’ and ephemeral characters in series like ‘Seinfeld’, ‘Chicago Hope’ or ‘Friends’. By the time he became Monica Geller’s boyfriend, Favreau had already written a movie like ‘Swingers’ (1996) and was about to jump into the director’s chair.
Little did he imagine then that a decade later he would take over the controls of the first two installments of ‘Iron Man’ (2008 and 2010), the most celebrated, and that he would later deal with transferring titles to real image or computer animation. as iconic as ‘The Jungle Book’ (2016) or ‘The Lion King’ (2019).
But Favreau was not in Madrid last Tuesday to talk about cinema. He was in the capital to promote the third season of ‘The Mandalorian’, which will land next Wednesday, March 1 on Disney +. Cheered like a rock star – they applauded almost every one of his interventions – the executive producer, ‘showrunner’ and main writer of fiction greeted those present with a “How are you? Thank you Madrid. It is the first time I come to this city. You have the most amazing food in the world!”
The truth is that there is a lot of interest in continuing the adventures of the Mandalorian. The second ended with the protagonist, played by Pedro Pascal, giving Grogu to Luke Skywalker to teach him to control his powers. “We introduced a lot of characters and story lines and raised a lot of questions not only in the previous two seasons but also in ‘The Book of Boba Fett.’ Now we know that Pedro Pascal’s character has removed his helmet and in the sect to which he belongs that is a great sin. In order for them to accept him again and redeem himself, he will have to go to the planet Mandalore, which is in ruins, and go down to the living waters to bathe and receive that forgiveness », advances Favreau.
There is no doubt that the ‘Star Wars’ fan is in luck, with so many live action and animated series set in their universe. Now, how does Favreau manage to make all these projects coordinate with each other? «It is true that many things happen at the same time and that some of them happen in the same period, which goes from ‘Return of the Jedi’ to ‘Episode VII’, as it happens with ‘Asohka’, ‘The book of Boba Fett ‘ or ‘Skeleton Crew’. I only have to be concerned precisely with those, who are the ones that are connected with ‘The Mandalorian’ and be clear about the facts. My partner Dave Feloni and Kathleen Kennedy, on the other hand, have to take into account the entire time line and series like ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ or ‘Andor’”, points out who was only ten years old when episode IV of the saga began. premiere.
Grogu, in a frame from the series.
“I remember being blown away not only by the special effects but by the way George Lucas talked about the mythos. As I got older, I saw that Lucas talked about influences like westerns or spaghetti westerns, samurai films, the work of Joseph Campbell, so focused on myths. I realized that Lucas used anthropology to create stories and characters », he sums up. For this reason, when he took on this assignment, he not only resorted to the entire universe that Lucas had developed, but he also approached all of his influences. “We saw movies by John Ford, Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa,” he explains. «It was about –he says– making simple stories, with new characters, but also filling it with references not only to the movies, but also to novels, comics, dolls, all seeking the balance to introduce new fans and keep the old ones. Only then will we get Star Wars to continue in the future.”
Scripts without artifice
Favreau assures that writing scripts for television “is a magnificent exercise” for a screenwriter. In the film industry, he says, “we use the script as a sales tool.” Each text passes through so many hands before reaching a possible director, “that we seem like novelists trying to charm readers.” On the other hand, when you have eight episodes, the way of writing is completely different: «You flee from the superfluous, from the decorations, it is pure ‘Pulp Fiction’, you try to write storyboards that excite the team so that they really want to do the episode ». That’s why, he says, “I’ve never felt so fulfilled with such a collaborative process for the screen as with ‘The Mandalorian.'” In this sense, he gives advice to those who feel attracted to the world of television: «If you have the opportunity to choose and you embark on a series, where you are going to be involved for months or years, you should really be passionate because you are going to live in that world. I am very lucky to do something every day that excites and passionate me and not have the feeling of working.
It also reveals that one of the most special moments that he has experienced working on ‘The Mandalorian’ was in the last sequence of the second season. Before even starting work on the series, Favreau had already jotted down an idea in his notebook: the possibility that in the same way that Yoda became Luke Skywalker’s mentor, Luke would end up mentoring Grogu. “It made sense, after all, around that time we know that Luke opens his own academy,” explains the executive producer of the series. So when the events came to that in the second season, they called Mark Hamill, who said yes. “It was a lot of fun shooting him because first only the shadow comes out, then the saber and finally the glove, until you realize it’s him and Pedro Pascal’s performance was fantastic.” Light & Magic Industries put in the rest to rejuvenate Hamill. But what surprised Favreau the most is that the iconic sequence was not leaked to the media before the premiere. “We shot on a rest day and it was amazing. I was like that ten-year-old boy. I was choking on set and my brain was going crazy. It was very moving », he recalls.
The classic and the modern
Much of the success of the saga lies in the combination between the classic and the modern. “Walt Disney himself also talked about it,” says the screenwriter. «He spoke of taking a nostalgic look at the past, but always with the future and technology in mind. Lucas comes from that same inspiration, he talks about distant and future spaces, but for a long time », he recounts. Not in vain, for the costumes and the props of the films, clothing from the Second World War was used and for the models of stations such as the Death Star, pieces of ships and airplanes. “That’s why – he analyzes – there is a certain familiarity, despite the fact that what is shown is something fantastic and science fiction.”
In this sense, aware of the importance of special effects in the productions of the ‘Star Wars’ universe, Favreau assures that the characters and stories continue to be “the most important thing”. And although the use of computer generated effects is there, «we never escaped from the combination of the old and the new. Grogu is an animatronic puppet. I don’t know if that character would exist in another type of film, but masks and puppets are part of this universe. It’s part of his aesthetic, he can be goofy, but he can also be very scary.”
He concludes the colloquium with a more trivial question. Which of the tapas you have tried is your favourite? «I think I haven’t eaten enough and I don’t know the names. Scrambled eggs, garlic prawns, Iberian ham… I’m a fan of everything and I have to go back to answer this question correctly!».
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