Last week, it was revealed that Ahsoka star Claudia Black had declined to reprise her role as Klothow, one of the three Great Mothers who had formed an alliance with Grand Admiral Thrawn on Peridea, in Season 2 of the Star Wars series.
The actress explained that when the series moved from Los Angeles to the UK, Disney wasn't willing to pay what she needed to support her life as a single mom. Neither Disney nor Lucasfilm have responded, but as you might expect, Black's comments have garnered plenty of attention.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter (via SFFGazette.com), Black expanded on her previous remarks and expressed dissatisfaction with her pay for the first season of Dave Filoni's Star Wars Rebels follow-up.
"When I did the first season, people assumed that I’m making hundreds of thousands of dollars," she started. "It could not be further from the truth on a role like this. [My pay was] closer to what I was earning when I was 19 or in my early 20s."
"I have heard people who work in corporations, not necessarily Disney, but all these bigger corporations, they have spoken in rooms about how lucky the actors should be to be part of a successful franchise, and that they will take it for the screen credit and they will take it for a bit of money, and then hopefully that will bring them further work, but that they should be lucky."
"The issue I have is when that comes to women, other people who were able to say yes to this job didn’t have the same responsibilities, and that thinking is not designed around how much invisible work women do in a household," Black continued. "I knew the risks and I think there’s more power in me stepping back, because I’m not desperate and there’s more power in me talking about it."
The Ahsoka alum went on to say that she does "completely understand the decision that Disney made" and believes it wasn't personal. Expanding on that, the actress said, "It’s really important to me, having this conversation as it continues in some respects from #MeToo, just starting to open up discussions around disparity and the way things are run, and the way women are treated."
Stressing that her experience on the Disney+ series was otherwise positive, Black reiterated that her goal was to raise awareness in Hollywood, not to put the House of Mouse on blast. In fact, she reached out directly to Filoni to express gratitude for the time they spent together on Season 1.
"He probably wouldn’t have known the background and I wanted him to know that if I could have, I would have, and that I did season one on a massive pay cut, precisely because many people want to be part of the Star Wars universe, and we will say yes," she said. "But it took me to burnout, and it actually did really cost me to do it in the end."
Jeryl Prescott Gallien and Jane Edwina Seymour play the other two Dathmiri Nightsisters of Peridia, and the trade confirms that Black's role has been recast. Aside from Ray Stevenson, who died in 2023, her character was the only one to be swapped out for a new actor in Ahsoka Season 2.
Ahsoka Season 2 stars Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati, Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger, Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Rory McCann as Baylan Skoll, with David Tennant as Huyang and Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn.
The series is expected to return to Disney+ in 2026.