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LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Eckstein Talks Return, Showrunners

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy - Pieces of the Past star Ashley Eckstein spoke with Bleeding Cool about the showrunners honoring Ahsoka.

What makes for effective parody at times is having the awareness of a character and a franchise's legacy. That is what helped sell Ashley Eckstein, who has voiced the role of Ahsoka Tano since 2008's The Clone Wars and has become part of the greater Star Wars universe ever since, to embrace LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy as part of season two's branded Pieces of the Past. The miniseries follows a young nerf-herder named Sig Greebling (Gaten Matarazzo) accidentally removes the Cornerstone, an ancient relic from an ancient Jedi Temple that can rewrite reality at will, which causes the "building blocks" of the galaxy to get mixed up, with characters, locations, species and institutions being changed beyond recognition, with all characters changing into alternate versions of themselves. Eckstein spoke to Bleeding Cool about how she got involved in the project, working with creators Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, and her thoughts on some of the alternate versions of Ahsoka and Darth Jar Jar (Ahmed Best).

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of the Past Star Ashley Eckstein How Showrunners Honor Franchise, Ahsoka, LEGO and More

When you signed on to do LEGO Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy- Pieces of the Past, that's a little bit of a mouthful. How did you feel about getting to the LEGO universe, and what did you think about how the LEGO Ahsoka looked?

First, I am a massive Star Wars fan, as everyone knows, and I'm also a massive LEGO fan. The chance to combine two of my loves was a dream come true, so I was very excited. I've done a lot of work with LEGO in the past, so this was very cool, and then not to mention getting to voice Ahsoka again. It had been a couple of years. I hadn't voiced Ahsoka since 'Tales of the Jedi,' so it was, and I mean it's not an understatement to say "It was a dream come true" to get to do all those things again.

When you binged on the previous season, what were your initial thoughts were for some of the newer talent to the franchise, like Gaten and Tony [Revolori], and as an aside, what did you think of Darth Jar Jar?

[Laughs] Well, here's what I love. I got to chat with [creators] Dan and Benji on our new podcast, HypeFriend! We just launched their episode, so we "welcomed them to our neighborhood," as we say. We welcome them to our HypeHood, and we talked about that. I specifically love the backstory behind 'LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy.'

They treated and approached it as people play, especially kids, as kids play with their Lego. When you build things, you combine it all and everything gets mixed up, so characters that traditionally wouldn't interact with each other would in a kid's bedroom. If they've built multiple sets, why wouldn't they play with everything. If they have an Ahsoka brickhead, of course, that Ahsoka brickhead is going to play with a minifig.

That's just how kids play, so they also use their imagination. I love that Darth Jar Jar made an appearance because why wouldn't a kid have Darth Jar Jar? We've had many generations who have grown up with Star Wars, me included. I am an adult Star Wars fan, but it's really important to always make Star Wars content for kids, because we need Star Wars to last for generations to come. To have something like 'LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy' specifically speak to how kids play Star Wars is really important. Also, when you have nods like Darth Jar Jar, come on! That's for the adults.

Expanding on that, obviously, LEGO is chaotic like that in its imagination. We have these molds of how the story is. Admittedly, I have not seen the latest season on there, but was there an aspect of Ahsoka that you liked to have played that you wouldn't have traditionally played that 'Pieces of the Past' allowed you to do?

First, going back to your question about Darth Jar Jar and even this question, we actually got to chat with Dan and Benji about that in this episode. They give a lot of really good info in our recent episode of HypeFriend!, but specifically, we talk about Ahsoka, and what was important to me is that Ahsoka's spirit was there. She looks different, but obviously she's a brick head. Ahsoka's heart, spirit, warmth, and light should be there; her spirit should be there.

Without giving anything away, they definitely captured that, and we talked about that on the podcast that was important to them, to get the characters' spirits, not just Ahsoka, but all of them, to get their spirit correct. When I read the scripts, I was like, "Oh, wow! Okay. Yes, she looks different." Yes, there are some funny lines about the fact that she's a brick head, so she has some fun too, but her spirit is still the same, and it's still the same Ahsoka that we've grown to know and love.

What was your first impression of Dan and Benji when you met them, and creatively compare to when you work with others on shows like 'Rebels' and 'The Clone Wars?'

I first met Dan and Benji via Zoom, because we recorded this. I was in Florida, and they were in California. I instantly felt so comfortable. It was evident from the moment that I met them that they are massive fans, that they knew all about Ahsoka and me, they respected how protective I am of the character, they allowed me to have a lot of say in my performance, and how I said certain lines.

It was a true collaboration from that sense, but they're fans, and that's what's so refreshing, is they're massive Star Wars and LEGO fans, and they not only want to honor LEGO, they also want to honor Star Wars and Ahsoka, and that was important to them. I would say most importantly, they wanted to honor the fans. I always think it's important in order to make like true quality content, or in my case, I do a lot of merchandise to make something for fandom, you have to be a fan of it, and clearly, they are massive fans.

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of the Past, which also stars Bobby Moynihan, Marsai Martin, Michael Cusack, Mark Hamill, Dan Stevens, and Ben Schwartz, returns September 19th.

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