She’s best known for her starring roles in Farscape, Riddick and Stargate, and here in the Star Wars galaxy she’s the actress behind the Great Mother Klothow in Ahsoka, but speaking to Bleeding Cool about the role, Claudia Black reveals that very real world budgetary reasons meant she wasn’t able to join her fellow castmates on season 2.
CB: “Well, I’m going to be transparent. They picked up season two, picked me up with it, and then Disney, which is structuring things differently these days, could not pay me what I needed to be paid as a single mother to keep all my responsibilities going at home in Los Angeles, because they were filming in London. It was not something that they could make happen, and therefore, I had to bow out for season two.
It was very sad for me. I sent an email to Dave Filoni thanking him, and I said, “What a ride!” Everyone like me who grew up in the 70s and 80s has always been into the Star Wars universe, and it’s a very playful environment to work in. I’m grateful that I got to be in that universe, lovely people, lovely directors, interesting to work on ‘The Volume.’ Their particular set, which is full of technology that George Lucas had dreamed about and talked about, and people thought he was crazy to suddenly be in that technology, see it working in real time, and talk to the company that had realized that technology.
I was fascinated by it, bugged them with questions about how it worked, and how they were able to render in real time while we were standing on the set, and the background was changing with us. It was extraordinary. It was a fun, playful space to be in, and people who wanted to be there were excited to be part of the Star Wars universe. It’s fun to do something that was relatable to my younger son, who was passionate about The Clone Wars, which was the new iteration for his generation.
When he heard me talking about it, we signed serious NDAs, and when he had me talking about it only took one thing. You would have been the same in the background. He was like, “Are you talking about the Night Sisters? What’s the show?” He heard one little thing, and he was like, “I know exactly who she’s talking about,” so it was fun to go into and do something relatable with him. but very sad to not be able to continue that at the end of the day. They call it “show business” for a reason. It’s like 90 percent business and 10 percent show. They could not, sadly, support a single mom, and I’m very sad about that, but I also understand market forces being what they are, and the very delicate time in the business to even be able to afford to make anything at all. We all had to do our sums and move on.”
You can hear our panel with Great Mother Aktropaw, actress Jeryll Prescott, on the Main Stage at London Film and Comic Con earlier this summer on a LIVE episode of Making Tracks.
