Adam Pally is a lifelong “Star Wars” fan who got the chance of a lifetime when he was cast to play a Scout Trooper on “The Mandalorian.” What he didn’t know at the time is that he would do something that would make his character more hated than Jar Jar: he had to punch Baby Yoda.
Pally appeared in the Disney+ show’s season finale alongside Jason Sudekis as a pair of scouts tasked with delivering the powerfully Force sensitive Baby Yoda to Moff Gideon, played by Giancarlo Esposito. Pally’s scout, curious about why the alien child was so wanted, stuck his finger out at Baby Yoda, who bit it. In response, Pally gives Baby Yoda a hard jab.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Pally was asked about the scene at the Television Critics Association’s Winter Press Tour on Saturday, where he was promoting the upcoming NBC comedy “Indebted.” Pally said that his friend and “Mandalorian” showrunner Jon Favreau offered the cameo role to him simply by telling him that he “needed somebody to do something special.”
And while it was a dream come true for Pally to put on the Scout Trooper’s helmet, he got very nervous after he did the first take of the punch when Favreau told him that the Baby Yoda puppet he was decking “costs, like, $5 million.”
“‘So while I want you to hit it, I just want you to know that,’” Pally recalled Favreau telling him. “I think I took a big swing at it. And the next three takes I missed, because I was so nervous.”
But the little green monster had it coming. “I gotta tell you, the truth is that Baby Yoda is a bit of a diva,” Pally quipped. “He’s constantly vaping.”
Pally will appear on “Indebted” when it premieres on NBC on Feb. 6. Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” is set for release on Disney+ this fall.