Before The Clone Wars movie premiered in 2008 and introduced fans to Ahsoka Tano, the young Padawan assigned to Anakin Skywalker, the series’ co-creator Dave Filoni had a warning to the voice of Ahsoka, Ashley Eckstein: be ready for the character to be hated. Filoni knew that it would take fans a while to embrace the change (a hallmark of the Star Wars fandom, it seems), but wanted Eckstein to stay the course.
Next week, fifteen years after Ahsoka’s introduction, a live-action series with her as the titular star launches on Disney+, bringing the now beloved fan favorite character to even wider audiences. It’s been quite the ride.
“It’s been quite the journey, it really has,” Eckstein said at a convention earlier this summer. “From the very beginning where she was hated. And one thing to note, we were always a season ahead of what you all saw. We were well into season two by the time you all saw the first movie, so I knew how far she had come.”
Like other Star Wars stars before her, Eckstein admitted that the hate the character received was hard. “When it came out, so many people hated Ahsoka. First, I sobbed into my cheesecake,” she admitted. “But then I took a day to have a pity party. Then, I was like, no – this character is amazing. And everyone else is going to see what I see if they just give her time. And so, I asked fans for their patience. I said look, no character is perfect in the beginning, and if they were, then they’d be really boring. So please go on this journey with her.”
Fans did exactly that, and today she stands as a favorite in the fandom. That much is evidenced by the fact that she was brought into live-action in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, and now headlines her own highly-anticipated series. And though Rosario Dawson brilliantly portrays Ahsoka in live-action, as the series approaches it’s important to make this much clear: the show would not be happening if not for Ashley Eckstein.
She brilliantly voiced the character across seven seasons of The Clone Wars, an animated Clone Wars movie, three seasons of Rebels, episodes of Forces of Destiny and Tales of the Jedi, a cameo in The Rise of Skywalker, an audiobook narrating E.K. Johnston’s Ahsoka, and a handful of video games. She’s been a mainstay at conventions and a consistent presence among fans online. It’s been her steady performance that has given such depth to the character and weathered the initial fan reaction. Her persistence to the craft – and, just as importantly, the character – has paid incredible dividends. Eckstein has given such depth to Ahsoka’s character, and it’s an under appreciated but very real reason so many fans love her today.
“I think the most important thing for me personally is to see and hear all of the stories of how Ahsoka has been changing lives,” Eckstein said this summer, “and that’s when things really changed for me, because not only did she change my life, but when you all share your stories with me about how she’s changed or saved your life, that sticks with me, and it’s changed me. And I just want to say thank you for trusting me with your stories and sharing them with me, and I will forever strive to be a real-life Ahsoka Tano however I can.”
She’ll always be Ahsoka Tano, and even more accurately, without her Ahsoka Tano wouldn’t be the focus of a series starting next week. Rosario Dawson deserves tremendous praise for her portrayal of Ahsoka in live-action (translating a character from animation to live-action is challenging in its own right), but so too does Ashley Eckstein deserve tremendous credit for making the character popular enough to bring to live-action in the first place. It’s important fans don’t forget that.
Star Wars Thoughts 