Carl Weathers

THE MANDALORIAN (DISNEY+)

According to Carl Weathers, when you are in the process of making something groundbreaking, you can feel it. “You get a sense of something that’s new in its own way, of stories being told in a way that you hadn’t seen before or experienced before,” he says. “For me, [The Mandalorian] definitely had that feeling of being historic.” Portraying Greef Karga, an agent of the Bounty Hunters’ Guild who becomes an unlikely ally to the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal), 73-year-old Weathers goes from quieter tête-à-têtes to full-on running and gunning throughout his five-episode arc. “That’s the easy stuff,” says Weathers of the movie-scale action sequences.

“The quieter stuff is where a lot of challenges can be. But I enjoyed it all.” Weathers, who directed his season-two appearance, admits it is the moving parts of the Star Wars series that present the biggest challenge. “This [show] morphs, it changes, it grows. It operates almost as this living, breathing entity, so you really have a chance to express yourself as a performer,” he says. “There are blueprints, but man, you have so much flexibility with how the house is going to finally be realized.” Having already been part of a few legendary franchises, the Rocky, Toy Story and Predator star can now count himself as part of a new iconic family. “There’s something about playing a character in a family of characters that I would equate to a school of fish — how they all move almost simultaneously in one direction or another,” he says. “That was really wonderful about this, and it’s something that I really embrace.”