Star Wars: 'Ahsoka' Casts Grand Admiral Thrawn

Grand Admiral Thrawn is finally flesh and bone.

Lars Mikkelsen (“House of Cards,” “Sherlock”) is set to play the longstanding “Star Wars” villain on the upcoming Disney+ series “Ahsoka,” Lucasfilm announced on Saturday as part of the Star Wars Celebration fan convention in London. Mikkelsen — brother of actor Mads Mikkelsen — also joined the cast of “Ahsoka” onstage at the end of the panel, saying that “it’s wonderful” to be cast in the live-action role.

Thrawn was originally created by author Timothy Zahn as part of a series of Star Wars novels released in the 1990s that covered the events following 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.” In those books, Thrawn was a cunning and ruthless Grand Admiral in the Empire who takes control of what’s left of the Imperial fleet and mounts a counter-offensive to take down the New Republic.

With his ice blue skin and crimson red eyes, Thrawn quickly became a favorite among hardcore Star Wars fans. But after Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, Zahn’s novels — and Thrawn’s role in them — were removed from Star Wars canon and rebranded as “Star Wars Legends,” in order to make room for the sequel film trilogy starting with 2015’s “The Force Awakens.”

The character, however, didn’t die. George Lucas protege Dave Filoni resurrected the character in 2016 for the animated series “Star Wars: Rebels,” maintaining a great deal of Thrawn’s biography and backstory. Mikkelsen voiced Thrawn in the series, which takes place in the events between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope.”

The prospect of the character stepping into live action was first suggested in Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” in the episode that first introduced Rosario Dawson as the Jedi warrior Ahsoka Tano, one of the lead characters from Filoni’s “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated TV series. In that episode, Ahsoka demands another character tell her where to find Thrawn, though the answer was never revealed.