‘The Mandalorian’: Katee Sackhoff Is Actually the Perfect Age for Live-Action Bo-Katan
The Mandalorian’s second season has had a litany of surprises around every corner. Each episode seems to top the last in terms of world-building and surprise character appearances.
Whether it’s Boba Fett showing up or the mere mention of Ahsoka Tano, Star Wars fans have been given plenty of Easter egg character references with great plots to go along with them. Another character that appeared earlier in the Star Wars Universe was Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze.
Sackhoff recently appeared on The Mandalorian as her old character. It’s not the first time in Star Wars someone slipped back into an old role (Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, anyone?), but Sackhoff is the most recent actor to do it. It does beg the question: does Sackhoff’s age match up with her character’s age?
Who is Bo-Katan?
According to the Star Wars databank, Bo-Katan is a legendary Mandalorian warrior. She’s a part of the Mandalorian terrorist group known as Death Watch, serving under Pre Vizsla. Death Watch was dedicated to returning Mandalore to its culture of warriors. She and Vizsla eventually form a begrudging alliance with Darth Maul in an attempt to wrestle back control of Mandalore.
Her sister was Duchess Satine Kryze, a peaceful ruler who was killed at the hands of Maul. She eventually convinces the Republic to allow her to use members of the 501st Legion against Maul’s forces in what became known as “The Siege of Mandalore.” She’d later fight against the Empire when they claimed control of her planet, aligning with former Jedi Ahsoka Tano.
Bo-Katan was most recently spotted in an episode of The Mandalorian, showing up years later to help Mando out of a jam. According to the show, she’s trying to find Moff Gideon to reclaim the Dark Saber, an ancient Mandalorian artifact. Bo-Katan was voiced and played in live-action by Sackhoff. But do the ages of the character and the person playing her match up?
‘The Mandalorian’: How old is Katee Sackhoff?
According to her IMDb profile, Sackhoff just turned 40 years old this year. Sackhoff provided the voice for Bo-Katan across two animated series: The Clone Wars and Rebels. She recently made a live-action appearance in the second season of The Mandalorian. Sackhoff has done plenty of other voiceover roles in both TV shows and video games.
She’s also made multiple live-action appearances in film and in TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, Law and Order: SVU, and 24.
Doing voiceover work is a different skill set than live acting, but it’s clear that Sackhoff has the chops to do both. The creative team in charge of the Star Wars universe noticed, which is why they cast her across multiple shows.
But does the casting make sense based on the time period that elapses between the various shows she’s a part of?
Why Katee Sackhoff is the perfect age to play Bo-Katan
Sackhoff is actually the perfect age to play Bo-Katan due to the amount of time that takes place in between the animated shows she appears on and The Mandalorian.
A Reddit thread dedicated to discussing this featured one fan who almost couldn’t believe it:
“I had to remind myself that Katee Sackhoff is older than she looks because my first instinct was that she looked too young to play Bo-Katan.”
Bo-Katan is very young during the Clone Wars. Roughly 20 years pass between the Clone Wars and the events of The Mandalorian — maybe slightly more. That would make her in her early 40s when she encounters Mando. Because she was only lending her voice in the earlier installments, her age didn’t matter as much. Now, she has the right age and look to pull off Bo-Katan in the flesh.
It gave Star Wars fans a seamless transition for the character. They get to enjoy Sackhoff’s performance yet again, but this time in a different medium.
