Speaking from New York Comic Con today, cast and crew members shared their experiences working on The Mandalorian’s second season during the pandemic over the past year.
The panel was attended by Matthew Wood and Dee Bradley Baker, who together make up most of the voices in Star Wars‘ animated projects. Baker voices the clones, including Cody, Rex, 99, the entire Bad Batch, and every regular in the series’ nine seasons. Wood, who works primarily as a sound engineer at Lucafilm, voiced General Grevious in Revenge of the Sith and ended up performing the famed battle droids during Clone Wars production.
The two recounted their lifelong experiences with Star Wars as fans, cast, and crew before taking audience questions that turned the conversation to more recent productions like The Bad Batch, The Mandalorian, and upcoming productions like The Book of Boba Fett.
When asked about the shift to working at home during production on The Mandolorian season 2, Wood responded earnestly: “Favreau was very quick to get us all home and make sure we were safe at the beginning of the pandemic,” Wood said. “All the tech was brought home and it went well.” So well that Chapter 13 of the show’s second season received an Emmy nomination for sound editing. Wood is listed as a Co-Supervising Sound Editor.
Wood also worked on Loki and the Emmy-nominated Falcon and the Winter Soldier this past year. The experience seems overwhelmingly positive, as he shares: “I’m a supervisor on the show, I’ve got a group of 15, 20 people If I have artists that want to stay home, that’s %100 fine with me.”
Wood voiced Jabba the Hutt’s right-hand man Bib Fortuna in season 2 alongside Baker, who played the much-beloved “Frog Lady” and “Frog Man.” Baker said that the move to home was smooth for him, sharing how he created his home studio on his website, howtobeavoiceactor.com. “As voice actors,” he said, “we’re kind of like session players. You want everyone working, otherwise there’s no gig, there’s no band.”