The second season of Ahsoka is gearing up to start shooting this April in the United Kingdom, and as we inch ever closer to filming starting up, casting for roles in the series is taking place. One role that needed to be filled was that of Baylan Skoll, a character that was of great importance to the first season and left season one with hints at an exciting season two for the character. Unfortunately the actor that portrayed Skoll in season one, Ray Stevenson, unexpectedly passed away last year, before the first season even aired.
According to an exclusive report from Jeff Sneider of TheInseider.com, Rory McCann, the actor best known for playing The Hound on HBO’s Game of Thrones has been cast as Baylan Skoll in the second season of Ahsoka, picking up the batten left my the late Stevenson.
I can confirm what Sneider has heard as I recently heard the casting myself from two separate sources. I was first told of the casting by a single source on December 30th by a source that told me previously that Mary Elizabeth Winstead had been cast as Hera Syndulla in the first season of Ahsoka, Lizzo in the third season of The Mandalorian as well as various plot tidbits over the years. As my readers know, I don’t report anything without a second source, and on January 1st, a second source reached out with corroborating the information. With two sources onboard I was playing to share this information as an exclusive once sources gave the go ahead, but if you snooze you lose in this game. Though I did give my followers a hint at what was to come by sharing a GIF of McCann without context across X, Blue Sky and Threads six days before Sneider’s newsletter dropped which broke the casting.
What’s funny is I previously heard McCann’s name attached to Star Wars a few years ago, I had heard when Andor season one was shooting that he was to play Brasso, the role which was ultimately went to Joplin Sibtain. So McCann’s name has been floating around Lucasfilm for a good few years.
McCann isn’t who I pictured taking over the role of the Baylan Skoll character and even now I struggle to see the fit, but I sincerely hope that McCann crushes the role and that Star Wars fans accept a new actor in the role of Baylan Skoll, a character that quickly became a fan favourite.
In addition to McCann’s casting, I have heard that Ahsoka season two will be filming at Longcross Studios in the United Kingdom and I’ve heard two different names in relation to the series – Firebird and Slow Horses. Star Wars productions usually use codenames for the series, for example, Andor’s codename was Pilgrim and the company associated with the production was E&E Industries. Usually you’ll see small pink signs where the production is filming which will either use the codename or the production name, in Andor’s case it was usually EE on signs (for E&E Industries) and for The Acolyte it was PDX which stood for Paradox, the series’ codename. So there’s two codenames tied to Ahsoka season two that I’ve heard, Firebird and Slow Horses, and I think that Dancing Sun Productions Limited is the company behind Ahsoka season two, just like E&E Productions Limited was the company behind Andor as I mentioned.
I’ve heard various little nuggets around two of the next three Star Wars projects that are slated for release – The Mandalorian and Grogu and the second season of Ahsoka, maybe I’ll get the chance to share some of what I heard with readers at a later date.
Thank you for reading the article and if you enjoyed your read, or if you’re a regular reader of Bespin Bulletin then I kindly ask if you’d consider showing your support and appreciation by tipping me via my Ko-Fi page here, each tip is deeply appreciated or supporting my work via my Patreon page here. You can sign up to a mailing list below to receive an email each time I publish a new article and you if you’re not already doing so, follow me on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Blue Sky, and Threads
