There were a lot of Star Wars fans hoping that when it was announced that Ming-Na Wen would be joining the cast of Disney+’s The Mandalorian, that she’d be playing an aged-up version of Sabine Wren, a fan-favorite character from Star Wars: Rebels. The chances were pretty slim given that the timing of the series would make Wen too old to play the character, but the idea got a lot of people excited. Today we can confirm that she’s not playing Wren.
Vanity Fair just posted a new trailer article on the series in which Wen’s character is Fennec Shand, an assassin who will come up against The Mandalorian somewhere in the middle of the season. Here’s what Wen told Vanity Fair about the new addition to the Star Wars universe and the inspiration for her name.
“We got our inspiration really from the name. The idea of a fennec fox came to mind,” Wen explains. “She’s tricky, and yet she’s able to maneuver and survive, and be stealthy—so very graceful and agile. I just love that whole image with the name.”
As an added bonus, the new trailer also gives us confirmation that the Ugnaught alien named Kuiil is in fact voiced by Nick Nolte.