Katee Sackhoff is getting candid about playing the live-action version of her Star Wars character, Bo-Katan Kryze, in the hit series, The Mandalorian.
Entertainment Weekly reported that Sackhoff said she didn’t connect to Bo-Katan while filming the second and third seasons of The Mandalorian, causing her not to feel confident in her acting abilities, in an August 2025 episode of her podcast, The Sackhoff Show.
“I lost all of my confidence after Mandalorian. All of it. I’ve always played two steps removed from myself, in a sense. It always felt grounded in some part of my belly, of who I was. Bo-Katan is nowhere near who I am as a human being. Her life, what she wants — I didn’t understand her. As much as I understood her, I never felt her in my stomach. I never identified with her. I didn’t know how to find her,” said Sackhoff.
The actress said the situation “broke” her.
“I started doubting everything about myself. I’m not a strong auditioner on tape, and I was having to put myself on tape. I wasn’t booking anything. And for three years, I basically didn’t work, and it just destroyed my confidence,” continued the 45-year-old.
She also shared that she decided to get a different manager and spoke to an acting coach following the third season of TheMandalorian, which aired in 2023.
“[The coach] said to me, ‘My goal is not to teach you how to act. You know how to act. I just need to get you back in your belly. You just need to find your confidence again.’ That’s it,” said the Battlestar Galactica star.
Entertainment Weekly reported that Sackhoff was first cast as Bo-Katan, a polarizing Mandalorian, for the animated Star Wars series, The Clone Wars. Sackhoff spoke about providing the voice for Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, which aired from 2014 to 2018, during a February 2024 episode of the Inside of You podcast.
“I voiced her for about 10 years. Not many episodes though. I only did maybe eight episodes but she made an impression,” said Sackhoff during the interview. “She was around sort of at the end of Clone Wars. She was in Rebels as well. She had an integral part in the tone of what it was when it ended. So it did make complete sense for her to find her way in TheMandalorian.”
In addition, Sackhoff said she was a major fan of Star Wars before she was cast to voice Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars, which aired from 2008 to 2013.
“So Clone Wars was an amazing opportunity for me to be apart of this world. [Bo-Katan] is literally the gift that keeps on giving. I never dreamed that I would be such an integral part of season 3 [of The Mandalorian]. I want to keep playing her until there are no storylines left to tell,” said the actress in the podcast episode.