One of the biggest questions surrounding The Mandalorian and Grogu since the project was announced has been the extent of Pedro Pascal’s on-set involvement. We know he’s going to be in the movie, as he’ll be voicing the main character, but how much time will he spend on the set, exactly?
Star Wars Timeline show #12: Tales of Enlightenment
Filming for the movie began earlier this summer in California and is expected to continue through October. But Pascal has been in London shooting Marvel’s The Fantastic Four for a month now — production of that movie will probably not wrap before The Mandalorian and Grogu, so there is a complete overlap of the schedules for the rest of Jon Favreau’s movie.
Despite that, The Hollywood Reporter mentioned in a story earlier this week that Pascal’s schedule is “packed until the end of the year with Fantastic Four and The Mandalorian shoots”. This came up in an article discussing possible replacements for Joaquin Phoenix in a gay romance movie directed by Todd Haynes. The reporters crossed Pascal’s name off the list because he’s busy with both of these movies.
There are some possible scenarios here for what this means exactly. First, it could be that Pascal is given a couple weeks off from the Marvel set and fly over to California. Disney is producing both movies, and Favreau is close with Marvel boss Kevin Feige, so there is some corporate synergy going on between these two projects.
The opposite could also happen. There were some rumors earlier this year about The Mandalorian and Grogu possibly setting up shop in the UK for a small part of the shoot; perhaps that is partially motivated by Pascal being there.
A third possibility is that there will be some additional photography happening in California later this year to accommodate Pascal’s schedule, once he wraps with Marvel. (We don’t know when exactly that will happen, though it’d be surprising if they finished before Thanksgiving/Christmas, given the size of the movie.)
Then there are a few possibilities surrounding this line in the report. Maybe this is going off of old information, and Pascal was already on the set of The Mandalorian and Grogu before he started with Marvel. Or maybe this just references a two-week commitment to record dialogue for the movie, either while he’s in London or immediately after he wraps. (He has already done some voice work on it, as he was heard in the teaser trailer that was shown at D23 a few weeks ago.)
It’s also possible that the writer of the story just doesn’t know for a fact that he will be on the set, but has heard about Pascal’s involvement with the movie and wrote it into it.
So we’re not taking this as a fact just yet, but rather circumstantial evidence that Pascal will be, at some point during the Mandalorian and Grogu shoot, on the set. And of course, it makes sense. Storywise, we don’t know if the character will be taking off his helmet at any point, but just from a marketing point of view, you’d benefit greatly from having your movie star on the set of your movie.
Even besides filming the actual movie, there are probably a lot of marketing stunts already underway, from shooting featurettes in between takes to photoshoots in costume. And that’s not even taking into account that perhaps Pedro Pascal wants to be there, as the main actor in a Star Wars movie.
We’ll probably have to wait a few more months to know for sure what is happening. For now, The Mandalorian and Grogu is expected to debut in theaters on May 22, 2026.
