The Mandalorian: Katee Sackhoff reveals transitioning Bo-Katan from animation to live-action left her struggling

The Mandalorian has received acclaim for integrating animated Star Wars narratives into live-action, but all such transitions were not a cakewalk! Katee Sackhoff, the actress who originally voiced Bo-Katan Kryze in both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels, came forth and confessed that transitioning the same character onto the screens of The Mandalorian took much more effort than she could ever imagine.

She was not shy about expressing how the movement from animation to live-action had so shaken her. In a surprising twist, Sackhoff has come forward and admitted that instead of being all hyped up to continue Bo-Katan's journey from The Mandalorian, she was plagued by self-doubt for her acting. She even referred to it as "It broke me," and left her distant from the character, and she could not continue professionally. As per The Hollywood Reporter, she said,

"Very Scary. It broke me. It just broke me, where I started doubting everything about myself. I’m not a strong auditioner on tape, and I was having to put myself on tape. I wasn’t booking anything."

She added,

"And for three years, I basically didn’t work. And it just destroyed my confidence. I broke down and was like crying … I’m not OK, man, I’m so broken, I have no confidence left. I’m lost.”

Her experience tells us just how tough it must be for actors to bring animated characters to life in life.

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Bo-Katan's background and development into The Mandalorian

Bo-Katan Kryze first made her appearance in The Clone Wars back in 2012 as a Mandalorian warrior, all courtesy of Sackhoff herself. She was among the primary characters in the series and even featured in Star Wars Rebels. When The Mandalorian introduced her to live-action form in Season 2's "Chapter 11: The Heiress" episode, the fans applauded at the continuity.

For Sackhoff, however, adjusting to falling into armor was a far cry from a decade's worth of covering up behind a mic. The actress confessed that she never quite felt Bo-Katan on set with The Mandalorian. As per The Hollywood Reporter, she said,

"I’ve always played two steps removed from myself, in a sense. [My characters] always felt grounded in some part of my belly of who I was. Bo-Katan is nowhere near who I am as a human being. Her life, what she wants — like, I didn’t understand her."

Although Sackhoff was highly aware of Bo-Katan's back story, she discovered the live-action incarnation curiously detached. That distance, she said, balanced out her actor instincts.

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The emotional burden of being Bo-Katan

For Sackhoff, appearing on The Mandalorian killed her confidence. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she put it bluntly,

"I lost all of my confidence after Mandalorian — all of it,” Sackhoff said on her YouTube channel (below). “My style of acting has always just been [that] your first instinct is the right instinct. Do that. Play the reality of the situation. And I’ve never really played a character. I’ve always played two steps removed from myself, in a sense."

The confidence that had been shaken up for so long after the cameras ceased rolling was something personal for an actress who had been conditioned to trust her instincts.

She explained to us that she couldn't buy Bo-Katan's motivation in live-action like she was able to while performing her. The contrast was so stark that she'd find herself questioning whether she could cut it. For Sackhoff, The Mandalorian wasn't a job among jobs; it became an unexpected proving ground for her ability to bounce back as an actress.

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Career slowdown after The Mandalorian

The impact of her work on The Mandalorian extended beyond self-doubt. Sackhoff opened up about how she "basically didn't work" for nearly three years after shooting. During the three years, her live-action career in front of the camera consisted of one episode of Law & Order. She was still able to keep voice work on TV shows such as Robot Chicken, animated Watchmen, Justice League films, and Star Wars: Tales of the Empire in 2024, but live-action work almost did not cross her path.

This break in her acting, she confessed, was a result of how disturbed she had been after The Mandalorian. For a veteran actress whose credits range from Battlestar Galactica to Longmire, the abrupt break was unprecedented. It was a period Sackhoff took to reboot her life and find methods with which she could rebuild her confidence in herself.

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Rebuilding confidence and getting back

Embarrassed to implement some drastic measures, Sackhoff was engaged in getting herself back in line. She hired a new manager and spent some time with an acting coach. Ironically, the coach's task was not to assist her in reclaiming the art of acting but to remind her of her instincts, something Sackhoff called re-establishing her "belly." That was a process taking time, but it enabled her to start filling the gap from self-doubt planted by The Mandalorian.

Her desperation to get help reflects how far even veteran actresses must go to deal with bizarre obstacles while shooting on big-name shows like The Mandalorian. For Sackhoff, the process of trying to restore her confidence was as central to the work as the acting.

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Looking ahead after The Mandalorian

Now Sackhoff has recovered enough to be back on the job with renewed vigor. She will star in a new limited series remake of Carrie with director Mike Flanagan once more. Though she does acknowledge that confidence is probably not yet restored, she's at the point now where she can experiment with new things.

The Mandalorian will always be a role-defining job for Sackhoff—both for the acting test it represented and the transformation it required. For the spectator, her honest admission is an uncommon honest peek behind the scenes of a franchise all too frequently obsessed with epic fight choreography and superheroic icons. For Sackhoff, it was a reminder that even in the galaxy far, far away, self-discovery troubles are all too real.

Also read: The Mandalorian might be teasing a threat that even Anakin couldn’t stop