STAR WARS REBELS Actress Vanessa Marshall Hopes To Bring Mara Jade Into Future Live-Action Movie Or TV Show

STAR WARS REBELS Actress Vanessa Marshall Hopes To Bring Mara Jade Into Future Live-Action Movie Or TV Show

Vanessa Marshall lent her voice to Hera Syndulla in Star Wars Rebels and she's now expressed an interest in bringing Mara Jade to life in a future, Dave Filoni-helmed, live-action project. Check it out...

By JoshWilding - Nov 29, 2023 05:11 AM EST
Filed Under: Star Wars
Source: SFFGazette.com

During Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, fans met Mara Jade and learned she was once the Emperor's Hand. Undercover in Jabba the Hutt's palace during Return of the Jedi, she didn't make it onto the sail barge so was unable to assassinate Luke and subsequently blamed him both for her Master's defeat and the fact she lost everything.

Despite initially setting out to kill the Jedi, Mara ultimately realises that Palpatine planted the idea in her head at the moment of his death and embraces the idea of being a Jedi too...after ridding herself of the Sith's voice by dealing the killing blow to Luuke, a clone of Luke created by Dark Jedi Jorrus C'baoth (it's complicated). 

Eventually, she and Luke marry and have children, something we know won't happen in live-action after watching the sequels. We could, however, still get a compelling new female protagonist who is front and centre in this next era of storytelling, and the hope is that Dave Filoni will introduce her in his upcoming Star Wars movie. 

During a recent appearance at Fan EXPO San Francisco, Star Wars Rebels actress Vanessa Marshall - the voice of Hera Syndulla - shared her hope to work with Filoni in a live-action capacity, revealing Mara is the character she next wants to tackle in this Galaxy Far, Far Away. 

"I would love to play Mara Jade," she told fans in attendance (via SFFGazette.com). "Can you call Dave Filoni and just let him know that I’d love to play Mara Jade? I think we would all just like to be in live-action in some way. We haven’t had the opportunity to do it yet. But my background is in live-action."

Marshall looks the part, but this will hinge on what Lucasfilm has planned for the character. The moment to explore a romance with Luke has largely passed, and if she's still the Emperor's Hand, that locks the studio into casting a version of Mara in a very specific age group. 

With so many Disney+ characters expected to be put front and centre in Filoni's Star Wars movie, chances are there won't be room to throw Mara into the mix. There's always a chance she could appear elsewhere, though, with the upcoming Rey project a solid possibility even if it would result in some big changes.  

There's always a chance Mara could debut in animation first and, if so, it will be the perfect opportunity for Marshall to portray this character. While she remains the voice of Hera in animation, that role has since been taken over in live-action by Ahsoka star Mary Elizabeth Winstead. 

Do you think we'll eventually see Mara on screen? Let us know in the comments section.

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dagenspear
dagenspear - 11/29/2023, 6:01 AM
Fun, to me, to see someone whose invested in that. Depending on if they go with the classical take, I think she'd likely play an older version of that character.
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 11/29/2023, 6:03 AM
OT Godzilla minus one still 100% on RT after 24 reviews. Not hear a bad thing about it yet. Can't wait to see it in IMAX
EZBeast
EZBeast - 11/29/2023, 7:48 AM
@ChocolateMousse - a thing of beauty!
dragon316
dragon316 - 11/29/2023, 9:02 AM
@ChocolateMousse - depends who your are avatar received score in 90 people who like those movies will not see them regardless what score is score and reviews don’t make movie successful look transformers sequels both made billion back to back score under fifty
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 11/29/2023, 9:07 AM
@dragon316 - I know but Im going to like it based on the reviews. Success comes in my forms
Origame
Origame - 11/29/2023, 6:15 AM
...what's the point? Rey basically took over that spot.
DevilsDreams
DevilsDreams - 11/29/2023, 6:23 AM
@Origame - Not in the slightest... Rey is so far removed from any aspect of Mara Jade.
Origame
Origame - 11/29/2023, 7:11 AM
@DevilsDreams - I mean, she's the offspring of a legacy character who takes the mantle of main jedi character from Luke. Mara jade is redundant storytelling if rey exists.

And FYI, my point is the sequels should be made non canon.
The1st
The1st - 11/29/2023, 7:41 AM
@DevilsDreams - Exactly. More Sunrider lite imo.
DevilsDreams
DevilsDreams - 11/29/2023, 8:22 AM
@Origame - Don't entirely disagree with discarding the sequels tbh... it's just a shame that with Carrie Fisher gone, Harrison Ford not interested, that only leaves Mark Hamill, but unless they want to spend a fortune on CGI to de-age him, then it would be a struggle to produce a decent sequel trilogy with only him...

For me it was their lack of planning and allowing Rian Johnson to write and direct The Last Jedi, with seemingly no oversight. So many missed opportunities that could have fleshed out the film at least, or decisions to just throw away characters... Snoke, Admiral Ackbar, Tallie Lintra, even Admiral Holdo...

As an example, rather than just flush Admiral Ackbar into space in what was essentially a meaningless (and partially insulting) death for a well known character, he could have been injured during that attack, so when it came to them evacuating the ship, he could have stepped up to give his life to save the others, knowing in part that he possibly wouldn't survive even if they did escape, that would have left Holdo there as a protagonist to work opposite Poe Dameron, her being the voice of caution and planning, him being the juxtapose of daring and action, this would have allowed both characters to develop as whilst they would clash on how to handle situations, they would both ultimately have the best interests of the resistance at heart...
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 11/29/2023, 6:15 AM
Feels like a case of someone who had a look at the list of characters not yet adapted and threw out a name in the hopes it gets traction, but nothing wrong with trying.
DevilsDreams
DevilsDreams - 11/29/2023, 6:23 AM
Such a missed opportunity for Mara Jade, an excellently written female character from the EU!

Unless they are able to cast someone to play the younger Luke, instead of having to rely on CGI to de-age Mark Hamill, I'd almost prefer that they do not introduce Mara Jade. Whilst I understand we will never get the same story as the EU, I worry that they would really butcher the character overall.

It's already disappointing that with the new trilogy, they utterly disregarded the now legacy storylines and characters, such as Jaina and Jacen the twins of Han and Leia (as well as their other younger child Anakin).
Jaina was another example of a well written female character, that fought hard during her life to find herself as she grew into adulthood.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 6:48 AM
@DevilsDreams - I still think they should've just made Rey and Ben Jaina and Jacen. They're stories would've been different, but it just would've made more sense.

Also, I still don't like how Kathleen Kennedy said this when making the sequels: ''Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels.'' She just completely disregarded the work dozens of writers put into dozens of years of storytelling.
DevilsDreams
DevilsDreams - 11/29/2023, 6:57 AM
@bkmeijer1 - 100%!!!
They could still have come up with a plotline to have split them up, maybe a kidnapping or something similar, the Ben/Jacen character could still have fallen to the darkside to facilitate Luke withdrawing from the galaxy, although quite frankly it wouldn't have been needed.... Even Mark Hamill seemed to alluded that in his opinion the writing of Luke didn't make sense with his view of the character.

Oh yes, that really gets to me... whether she meant it in jest or she just really didn't know that the product she was overseeing had a HUGE pool of lore to draw on, either is a huge red flag that she isn't he person to lead Lucasfilm and Star Wars in my opinion.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 7:11 AM
@DevilsDreams - saw someone on here mention in a comment once that both Rey and Ben were being trained by Luke, but when Ben attacked the school they mindwiped Rey and hid her away. That's why everybody seems to recognize her in TFA.

But yeah, I doubt Kennedy was anything but serious. Good to thing we have a guy in charge of the creative side now that has knowledge of the EU.
Matchesz
Matchesz - 11/29/2023, 6:40 AM
starwars only about the money now. Disney just a bunch of ants with a piece of chicken wing
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 6:45 AM
I can't really see Marshall as Mara Jade, but I do wanna see Mara Jade make the jump to live-action canon. Think it could work if they made her the protagonist of Filoni's movie.
Taonrey
Taonrey - 11/29/2023, 6:50 AM
@bkmeijer1 - she way too old to play Mara anyways, unless it's set during the sequel trilogy.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 6:51 AM
@Taonrey - yeah, that's why I can't see it. If it's set in the Mandalorian?Ahsoka timeframe, an actress in her mid to late 30s makes more sense.
Taonrey
Taonrey - 11/29/2023, 7:06 AM
@bkmeijer1 - honestly doubt we ever see the character, if anything Shin will probably take her role
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 7:12 AM
@Taonrey - I kinda doubt that. Before Ahsoka premiered, I did expect Baylan and Shin to take the place of Joorus and Mara Jade, but not anymore. Especially considering they're in another galaxy now and never really alligned with the Empire.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 11/29/2023, 6:47 AM
Maybe we can get the actual sequel trilogy now that Feloni is setting up many things in between the originals and prequels
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 6:50 AM
@bobevanz - an interquel trilogy (or whatever you'd call it) is something I do wanna see happen. There's great EU stuff with Thrawn, Lumiya and the Yuuzhan Vong to draw from
Taonrey
Taonrey - 11/29/2023, 7:07 AM
@bkmeijer1 - as long as they recast Leia and Luke, I'm tired of that Amazon echo dot corpse they got running around
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 7:14 AM
@Taonrey - agreed. I think deepfake/AI will get to the point they can pull it off, but not before Filoni's movie comes around. And it's not like they already have multiple actors running around as the same character anyway (Han, Lando, Obi-Wan).
Taonrey
Taonrey - 11/29/2023, 7:51 AM
@bkmeijer1 - That and I just prefer real people, that AI/deepfake isn't for me lol I'm team recast all the way.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 11/29/2023, 8:39 AM
@Taonrey - oh yeah, same here. Much rather see them cast someone like Billie Lourd or something
marvel72
marvel72 - 11/29/2023, 7:27 AM
Of course she'll be in it eventually.

EZBeast
EZBeast - 11/29/2023, 7:48 AM
Once again…

They had the [frick]ing heir to the empire series they could’ve adapted but no Disney decided to shitcan the extended universe but once again prove they cannot create anything original or of quality on their own so they decide “oh we can just use those books we told fans weren’t cannon anymore now”.

I hate Disney so much…

Matchesz
Matchesz - 11/29/2023, 8:33 AM
@EZBeast - I really wish Kathleen Kennedy would get fired, the fanbase deserves justice. I just want to open this site and read "5 reasons why Kat Kennedy was fired"
NinnesMBC
NinnesMBC - 11/29/2023, 11:53 PM
I always say that they could do the Legends lore through animation. That has no boundaries, they could go all-out.

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