Adam Savage Behind the Scenes of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]Sir.

[00:00:02]>> Hello, sir.

[00:00:02]>> How are you?

[00:00:03]>> Very good. How are you? Pleasure. Really good to see you. Don't >> shake me too hard.

[00:00:06]>> What do you got there?

[00:00:07]>> This is something Dave Acor made >> on our um way >> at the sound mix.

[00:00:12]>> What?

[00:00:12]>> Isn't that cool, >> dude?

[00:00:14]>> Great to see you, man.

[00:00:15]>> Thanks for coming by.

[00:00:16]>> Absolutely.

[00:00:17]>> The Mandalorian and Grou marks the return of Star Wars to the big screen.

[00:00:22]the culmination of a journey that began when we met these now iconic characters who pushed the boundaries of Star Wars storytelling. Tested visited the production where director John Favro walked me through the practical sets they built housed within Quanit huts and in fact the very same Quanet huts built during the mid-century aviation and hot rod boom that inspired George Lucas' original vision. It's on these sets and the production archives that Star Wars is at its most tangible, where I can see and touch and be immersed in the practical spaceships and droids and creatures and props born of John Favro and Dave Fileon's expansion of the Star Wars universe.

[00:01:03]>> You must be so excited to finally show the world your baby.

[00:01:05]>> I am. I'm I'm pretty excited about it.

[00:01:07]This area was known as Thunder Alley.

[00:01:09]Yeah. In the hot rodding days, these were all uh these were all like TCO Motors. Uh James Garner had his his Corvette shop here. Yeah. So here in this neighborhood originally it was it was it was Howard Hughes built aircraft here and we filmed Iron Man at what's now Google headquarters hanger.

[00:01:28]>> This was part of the big his big uh air airfield.

[00:01:34]>> Holy cow. I didn't realize >> this was many years ago. Then the hot rodders came in took them over and these became machine shops. And this is where they built a lot of the bolt-on parts.

[00:01:41]>> Oh man.

[00:01:42]>> And then later tech came through. So it was sort of silicon beach. Yeah.

[00:01:45]>> But these quan huts are are uh are old originals and we've we've done uh motion capture in here. We've uh one of the structures is our model shop. Uh we've we filmed Oswald in these uh using these as sort of like mini soundstages.

[00:02:03]>> And we filmed Star Wars here. And so I'll bring you uh over across to where we uh where we filmed it.

[00:02:09]>> Oh, let's see.

[00:02:09]>> All right. Inside here is where we actually filmed uh a deli base for the series.

[00:02:15]>> There's no way.

[00:02:16]>> And for the film.

[00:02:17]>> So you didn't just reassemble the set here. This is where you filmed.

[00:02:19]>> We kept it standing. These are just signs that we had. This is actually the food pod where Marty Scorsese's character >> Holy cow >> works. So if you go in there, actually >> amazing. Oh my gosh.

[00:02:32]>> So it's a little uh Gondalf in uh in the Shire.

[00:02:36]>> I love this. I love that you built a practical set. Yes, we did. We were able because it's a film, we were able to have the time to build a lot of practical >> on the show, >> you know, we had to turn around in less than a year. Yeah. So, we innovated.

[00:02:49]There was there was new >> new GPUs, Nvidia that everybody knows Nvidia now, but at the time they were just a gaming video card company.

[00:02:57]>> Uh those their new cards allowed us to have a refresh rate that allowed us to do 24 frames. our volume, the the video walls were driven by basically VR tech, gaming tech.

[00:03:09]>> Incredible.

[00:03:09]>> And so we use that to get in camera final pixel effects. Uh now we use some of the same technology more for interactive light, but we had the opportunity to build full sets and just do things we never had the opportunity to do because we had several years, not not several months. So anyway, so yeah, so this was one of our builds and >> that's incredible how much practical you were able to do. So, as we go through here, this was this was our set from the show and from the film.

[00:03:36]>> Oh, wow.

[00:03:38]>> So, in keeping with what George Lucas did, we >> he he used a lot of kit bashed a lot of World War II techs and props and, you know, from the Greblies and when you were making models that >> you'd pull pieces from the old model kits.

[00:03:52]>> Yeah. The old Tama World War II train cars and rail guns and Yeah.

[00:03:56]>> for for the weapons, for the for for the spaceships, for everything. So, and and you were I I know you you're you probably recognize >> Oh, yeah. The IG the Derwent engines for >> Right. That's a Rolls Rolls-Royce sensor, right? And and before that, it was in the bar. Yes.

[00:04:10]>> On Tatooine. So, we've we've we've Amanda Serino and and and uh >> and Andrew Jones are, you know, in our art department. They've been sourcing this stuff as they did on the We've really tried to capture the spirit of the originals. Uh because that's what I grew up with. Well, and in using the Quanet Hut, you're kit bashing the actual world, the whole world. It's amazing.

[00:04:33]>> So, it doesn't take much, you know, much like in the original film, you just have a few art pieces in there and then you tie in and then you change them to pill windows.

[00:04:41]>> Uh, but see, yeah, like you can't even tell where it where it starts and stops.

[00:04:45]And so, this is the first Star Wars production, The Mandalorian, to ever film in Los Angeles.

[00:04:51]>> I love that you've got the Imperial droid sitting on the air.

[00:04:53]>> Okay. So, you want to go through it?

[00:04:54]This is a Do you recognize what this is up here?

[00:04:57]>> The round thing. Wait a second. Wait a second. It's the side of the something.

[00:05:01]>> It's a hatch.

[00:05:02]>> It's actually a top hatch, I think. Or the back hat. It's It's on a TIE fighter.

[00:05:07]>> That's it. Yeah.

[00:05:08]>> And we use that for when Moff Gideon's uh TIE fighter. So, we we've kept we've been doing this for for whatever years.

[00:05:15]>> So, we actually have like our own little mini archive of stuff. So, this is a bit of a deep cut.

[00:05:22]This is from we we built this from a set piece from Tshi Station that was never used in the actual films, right?

[00:05:31]>> But they filmed back in the ' 70s. And so this is a video game from Star Wars.

[00:05:36]People who know Star Wars, like the more detail you put in, the more they you know what I mean? And if you don't know it, it doesn't matter. But if you do, uh, there's a lot of the whole, our whole crew is always on the hunt for how do we put more stuff in the margins and how do you how do you add detail?

[00:05:52]>> You must walk in here in the morning and be like, >> I'm fully in this world.

[00:05:57]>> Well, we kept it up because I said, well, you know, somebody like Adam Savage might want to come by one day, >> but but we have this as a back as a back like, let's just keep it up as a backdrop. Um, it really is like playing Star Wars. Uh they always joke Dave Fona and I are like two kids.

[00:06:12]>> Totally.

[00:06:12]>> And it it's just a bigger playet. And we have >> That's what you That's why you get the big playsets cuz you guys make really great toys out of it.

[00:06:20]>> Thank you.

[00:06:21]>> Well, actually, you want to see? We have more toys um over here.

[00:06:26]>> Okay. So, here's sort of a >> little front of house. So, we had a full lot of stages to to build things in. And then we would use the tech in a different way because we would, you know, sometimes be on real locations, sometimes film at real locations and tie into ones that we build.

[00:06:44]>> Amazing.

[00:06:45]>> But we weren't relying on the volume in the same way to actually replace the sets live, but it created reflections and interactive light. So it wasn't just blue screen, right?

[00:06:53]>> And so we could build pretty big sets that we would, >> you know, anything we interact with, we build. And if we extend up, we didn't use the traditional technique of just digital extensions and then just fixing.

[00:07:05]We we wanted to make sure that the that the main characters >> Yeah.

[00:07:08]>> we're getting uh optimal photography, practical photography. Amazing.

[00:07:12]>> And so that means providing proper reflection so you're not painting things out. So we were we found that the technology that we developed for the show could be leveraged >> and John Null actually built I don't know when you were touring with him, but he actually built a mini volume.

[00:07:25]>> I saw the miniatures. No, that for the for the Razer Crest from Breaking Through the Planet. We saw them put the mini volume on. It was amazing.

[00:07:32]>> And I know on the prequels it was a big challenge with the reflective >> the reflective ships, the Naboo ships, right?

[00:07:38]>> Yeah.

[00:07:38]>> Uh that you were fighting reflections.

[00:07:41]We sort of leaned into that >> as as we did with his armor. Here's a here's a practical location we built downtown, also Los Angeles. Has sort of a neon noir look.

[00:07:49]>> And there it is. You're getting a sense of it. But then at the end, we actually plug panels in for extension. So we had live.

[00:07:56]>> So you had deep >> deep deep and also reflection. So we could go wet.

[00:08:00]>> Amazing.

[00:08:01]>> Neon noir look is all about reflections and lights.

[00:08:03]>> This is your Ridleyville. This is your Blade Runner.

[00:08:06]>> That's amazing.

[00:08:07]>> And we watched all those films together.

[00:08:09]>> Uh and and we actually used >> the Apple Vision Pro because we were John Null was up north. We were down here. We'd screen together and he would like screen Rogue One and you'd see his avatar walking around talking. So we we were able to use tech to bring people together >> and use tech to to help uh leverage practical, right? And and just create a different combination that one might not have had before. I mean, I've been following your guys stuff so closely, it's hard for me to remember that this is also pushing the limits of what people can do with film right now. Like you are way out there at the at the leading edge of getting all this tech together.

[00:08:48]>> But as you'll see, it's super low tech at its core. Uh, so it's it's a it's a mix and that that that d that mix is very specific to what George did with Star Star Wars >> because he did really really it was super high-tech, bleeding edge tech, the Dystralex at the time.

[00:09:04]>> Yeah.

[00:09:04]>> But you also had really a livedin world and and old props and very tactile.

[00:09:10]>> So that's what we together as fans try to figure out. Is this Star Wars or not?

[00:09:15]>> This is actually a blowup of the uh Doug Chang original artwork >> his art department did. I'm not sure if he was the artist on this one. I think he was, but this is based on a doodle that when I first showed the script to Fona, he doodled this from the first episode, and that became >> kind of the final frame of of the pilot of the first episode.

[00:09:36]>> So, now we're getting into different world. There's a dark saber, not in the film, but uh in the >> from the show.

[00:09:44]>> Yeah. Yeah, >> we have a few of them. One of them I >> I have.

[00:09:47]>> I'm so glad for that. That's as it should be.

[00:09:50]>> Here's little Rada as a baby. That's something that I painted on the weekends. Yeah, >> dude. He's beautiful.

[00:09:56]>> Yeah. Thank you.

[00:09:57]>> Oh, that's great.

[00:09:59]>> So, that's fun. He's great until you see this. This is the actual stop motion models from Tippet.

[00:10:05]>> This is Oh, yeah.

[00:10:07]>> So, they're next level and >> and uh this was a very ambitious uh stop motion sequence.

[00:10:15]But because we had the time to plan and we had people like John Null coordinating all of it, we're able to engage with Tippet and have them do a really And they're actually You saw Mando's scales about here. So these are giant droids. Here we go. Here's the >> Oh, this is Oh my god. This is the Wow.

[00:10:36]Everything.

[00:10:36]>> This is our history. This is This is everything we've done uh on on Disney Plus and in the film. John, >> it's so thrilling to see it in one room.

[00:10:49]You It Does it overwhelm you a little bit to it? It's It's exciting. It It is overwhelming that cuz yes, you're looking at a lot of Star Wars, but also this has been my life for a decade or so.

[00:11:02]>> Close to a decade.

[00:11:03]>> Yeah.

[00:11:03]>> And and all these um people that we get to work with that are, you know, and this is a collection of work of, you know, this is stuff that that that we were able to build for the show. It's costumes that were built by by Legacy and Iron Head.

[00:11:17]>> It's even like those those little bird cages up there that's in the set.

[00:11:21]>> Each of those are little animatronics that were done by interns at Legacy that they gave them an opportunity to do all the little >> creatures in the shop.

[00:11:30]>> This is like the business end of a million decisions you've been making for a decade.

[00:11:35]>> And I love that it's real, too. Yeah, it's, you know, it's it's um there I don't know that people really understand how much real stuff we used cuz so there's a lot of digital work and really good digital work, but there's a lot of you know IG was a rod puppet and and a lot of these things started off as puppets that were built for reference, >> right?

[00:11:54]>> That everybody overd delivered like uh Grou was just supposed to be reference or stand in for >> for long shots. But then they kept building more servos into it, you know, because you >> and you guys ended up limiting the CG model to the confines of the practical.

[00:12:12]>> And because it's Star Wars, I think people are more accepting of the wonkiness of a of a puppet as long as it has some life to it and personality. And I know R2-D2 was my favorite character growing up, and that was like, >> you know, it wasn't a traditionally cute character, but I felt so connected to that character as a kid. And uh and and so here here's here's one of the mck this isn't one of the real puppets, but this is I think a mckette of him. Yeah.

[00:12:39]>> Oh, his sigil is much bigger than I thought it was. The the plate.

[00:12:43]>> You should have come here. Did you build one for your guy?

[00:12:45]>> I haven't yet.

[00:12:46]>> Okay, good. Well, it's a good thing.

[00:12:47]Take take reference.

[00:12:49]>> Uh and then this is the uh Legacy built this. This is the Enzelian >> the Enzelian ship, right? Oh my gosh.

[00:12:54]>> There's actually an interior over here.

[00:12:57]And if you look all the way over here, here's the inside.

[00:13:01]It's a bit of a tar set.

[00:13:02]>> Oh, wow.

[00:13:03]>> Wow.

[00:13:04]>> So, they had removable panels so they could puppet him through >> and underneath. Yeah. So, we learned a lot about puppeting and Dave Fona was uh >> directed most of the puppet unit. That was thinking it was going to be, oh, it'll be easy little thing to do. It was the hardest part of the show. And then if you have Anzelins, you have, you know, four Anzelins going and and Baby Yoda and Grou.

[00:13:23]>> That's a lot of passes and then motion control.

[00:13:26]>> Oh, so you're doing separate passes for each puppet >> sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it depends on what they were doing, but but often that was the best way just cuz all the bodies underneath working the rods and you get more control of performance.

[00:13:37]>> So, I remember reading about how concerned George was right up until Yoda, like filming with Yoda, like is this going to work? Is this character going to hold?

[00:13:46]>> I'm curious if when you're getting ready to unveil Grou, does he give you any words of advice or encouragement about taking that character and making them so?

[00:13:54]>> Not at that point. We knew we didn't know to what extent we'd be using right him and we through the course of filming started to really >> see what the practical version was doing. Again, we thought it was going to be mostly CG with just a mckette that had they said, "Let's just build a little bit of movement in just so in case it's in the background for a television show, you're not paying for a CG shot. If it's just in the background, just have it move around, >> right?"

[00:14:18]>> But the people at Legacy just overd delivered, overd delivered, then then facial, then then movement, then the rods. And then you start to look at the thing and it was actually Warner Herzog who was on the set cuz we would shoot with the for lighting reference >> and then we say, "Okay, get it out.

[00:14:35]Let's do the clean plate."

[00:14:36]>> And he was the one who called us cowards for for doing a clean plate. He says, "This thing's this thing's beautiful.

[00:14:41]It's magnificent. Why could you?" And Deb Chow was directing at the time and and she was like, "The word of Herzog is, you know."

[00:14:48]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:48]>> And and uh and so we started to trust it more. And then we knew once that we'd have the first reveal because thanks to Lucasfilm and Disney, they kept it a secret. It was not in any of the merch or the marketing material. Um, and so when you to have a surprise, >> Yeah.

[00:15:04]>> is rare now cuz everybody knows everything ahead of time. And so that reveal was really uh we knew it and and then it it created I think people wanted to see the show >> when it came out so that they wouldn't see on social on social media what had happened. and they want to be part of that discovery. And then Baby Yoda became a international before the show was even available in markets. Something about that image and that the innocence of that character >> and the cuteness and the personality people got and connected with. And so he's part of our thing. Uh but he's also part of the world. And one of the interesting parts about making a film with him as a star is you can't assume if people know him, they might not know everything about the show. So it's it's not unlike season one where there's going to be new people coming to see this.

[00:15:54]>> Of course. Of course. Yeah.

[00:15:56]>> But the your core audience, >> they don't have any shortorthand that they >> But but the same thing happened season one. Like there was we assume that nobody knew anything about Star Wars.

[00:16:04]There's new characters here. As long as you know that he's a bounty hunter and he's got his little apprentice/adopted child.

[00:16:12]>> Yeah.

[00:16:12]>> And what that dynamic is, you're good.

[00:16:15]>> But you also have to make it so that people who've been like us with Star Wars since the beginning, you have to give them a lot >> and you have to make it work for both audiences.

[00:16:23]>> That's a trick. That sounds like a really tricky needle to thread.

[00:16:26]>> But I think we did it the first season.

[00:16:27]You know what I mean? So, so I think that we kind of knew the keep the story clear and clean, know who the good guys and bad guys are, >> but then when you get to the supporting cast, characters, the background, the details, the implications as it speaks to the larger story line that there are clues in there as Dave Fona is getting ready to do Ahsoka season 2 that speaks to the bigger picture and the films to come that this fits into that timeline.

[00:16:54]But you want this to be a standalone story where somebody cuz it's been close to 7 years. There's there are people who aren't old enough to see Star Wars in the movie theater last time, >> right?

[00:17:04]>> And I want to make them feel how I felt when I saw it for the first time and have them fall in love with this and and and and bring them in.

[00:17:10]>> You know, >> I love that you talk about uh all the artisans working on all these things, going above and beyond and overd delivering. And I want to tell you when I worked at ILM, that was definitely the ethos was like you finish the back of your set to be really nice cuz it's us.

[00:17:25]>> It's like it's like a a Michelin star kitchen.

[00:17:28]>> Yes.

[00:17:28]>> You want to make sure that you know even if the even if the customer doesn't know everything, you know that you put everything into it and that you you were you did the best you could and and then other people who do it too are paying attention to what you're doing and they appreciate it. And as the director, you're trusting so much that whole team.

[00:17:48]>> But on this, I had that >> I I I was coming into this with uh I knew the characters, I knew the world, >> the audience knew who we are. And even though there's, you know, hopefully new people being introduced to it, >> we understand how it plays. We understand the genre. And when we push to go from, you know, we started off with samurai western influences. Yeah.

[00:18:13]>> Well, now we we were able to get into the other influences George had, which is like Flash Gordon, like Space Opera, Big, >> you know, Swashbuckling Adventure.

[00:18:21]>> And so >> we had other other golf clubs in our bag than we would have had, right? We had the big Bertha. We had big, you know, so we could do things of a scale and a scope that we couldn't do before, but we were building on something we already knew with crafts people that were at top of their game. So I never felt this experience going into a film where we already felt like we were we did our reps together and then finally when we we hit the set it was okay what could we do from here?

[00:18:50]>> So I have a story before we wrap which is that when I got on Star Wars uh on episode one it was just the last eight months of production. So, there was a warehouse over there at Kerner where all the models from episode one were. Yes.

[00:19:01]And I was just there for a few months and I was new. So, I was, you know, telling people what I could do. And I mentioned that I'd made a whip. And my supervisor, Brian Geran, was like, "Bring in your whip tomorrow. I want to see it." And I brought it in. He's like, "I want to see you crack it." And I'm like, "Well, this room isn't big enough." So, he took me to the warehouse with all the props and he's like, "Stand on the table and crack it." So, I'm standing on this table with, you know, $5 million of Star Wars props and cracking this whip that sounds like a gunshot. realizing I could end my whole career right here.

[00:19:29]>> That's right. You could have took out a ton.

[00:19:31]>> Exactly. Exactly. That's hilarious.

[00:19:33]>> This is your version of the same.

[00:19:34]>> Yeah, it is. It is. It is cool to see.

[00:19:37]You don't realize when you're doing it >> until you stand back and look at all the things. You realize you've been doing it for a long time with a lot of people.

[00:19:45]>> Yeah.

[00:19:45]>> And you sort of realize how much of your life you've spent working on something.

[00:19:50]So, it's a little a little surreal, but it's fun. But the best part is again to be able to share it with other people and show and I'm glad that you got to show everybody there because we're I'm proud of the work that everybody did and it's good that you at least get a glimpse of it.

[00:20:02]>> Everything has a story here. Everything does. I'm glad we got to tell a few of them. But >> but uh yeah, feel free to share any of this with your with your with your audience and maybe they know things I don't. They're going to find some really interesting things. Amazing.