A memorable star from The Mandalorian Seasons 2 and 3 discussed Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s original intent to kill his character off in the show’s second year, and how that ended up not being the case.
The Mandalorian’s third season recently wrapped up. While it didn’t enjoy the extreme popularity of the first two seasons, the series still found ways to further flesh out Star Wars’ New Republic era, while adding action and excitement along the way.
Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze and her Mandalorian followers, of course, played major roles in Mando Season 3, with her clan appearing in multiple episodes.
Simon Kassianides Talks Axe Woves’ Survival
Speaking to The Holo Files, Simon Kassianides, who portrayed Mandalorian warrior Axe Woves in both the second and third seasons of The Mandalorian, discussed how he had actually shot scenes for Season 2 where his character died.
Woves would have been killed in “Chapter 11: The Heiress,” but his death scene wasn’t used in the final episode, effectively sparing his character from being written out. Kassianides was sure to mention that he was “excited” that things shook out the way they did and the Axe Woves character was revived.
“The way I look at it is that it’s really the storytellers’ story to tell, so Jon and Dave and all the guys that create the show. They’re such experts in deciding everything, and they see how they want to shape things. I can’t really speak to [deciding to make Axe Woves live], because I think I was just mostly excited that it didn’t go that way.“
The actor recalled the series’ producers asking him if he’d like to do more Mandalorian, even though Season 2 was finished and there were no means of adding Axe Woves into a later episode. This caused a bit of confusion over his whereabouts when it came to Season 3:
But yeah, I do remember them calling me saying, ‘Would you like to come back and film?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, cool.’ And then when I went in and that and we did that it was beyond the season finale [of Season 2] having been locked, so it was too late to be inserted into a finale. So, there was a lot of the ‘Where was he? What were you doing? Why weren’t you in it?’ Now the cat’s out the bag.
Kassianides only appeared in one episode of The Mandalorian prior to Season 3, and upon reading the scripts for his additional episodes, he was quite impressed by his character’s role:
“I certainly had no idea for a long time as to how and when, and if I was going to be back, and you know all I had to go on was the wonderful reaction from the fans, just from that one episode in Season 2 which leaves you hopeful. And then, obviously, when I got the scripts for Season 3, reading them, I just thought ‘Wow!’”
Additionally, Kassianides spoke on how his triumphant declaration of “For Mandalore!” came to be in Season 3’s finale, noting that he worked with Jon Favreau on the line:
“Jon and I sat down and he said, ‘How do you feel about this arc and how would you feel about saying something?’ And he said to try ‘For Mandalore!’ And well, you know the rest is history, but it was an amazing moment, thinking about them all returning, especially the back story that I built into that moment in terms of what it meant for that character.”
The Continuing Adventures of Axe Woves?
The third season finale of The Mandalorian was pretty jam-packed. Mandalore was retaken, Moff Gideon was defeated (along with all of his Force-sensitive clones) and Din Djarin and Grogu settled down for a simpler life on Nevarro.
But what of the Mandalorians who recently reclaimed their home planet after being away for so long? And what is to become of characters like Axe Woves?
Given Woves’ fan-favorite status, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if Simon Kassianides reprised the role yet again for The Mandalorian Season 4.
This is especially likely since Bo-Katan also proved to be a major draw for the third season, making her Season 4 return quite probable as well. With Woves having sworn his allegiance to Kryze, it makes perfect sense that he’d be along for the ride again in upcoming episodes.
Of course, any filming for those new episodes has been pushed back for now, due to the ongoing writers’ strike, so it would be quite some time before Kassianides dons his beskar helmet again.
All eight Chapters of The Mandalorian Season 3 are available to stream on Disney+.
