Matt Leonard, Zeb’s stunt performer, shared at Rebel Scum Con the physical demands of becoming the character and how he prepared to get into the right mindset for fans!
"Yeah, luckily I got the big one, so I don't have to worry about that. But the funny thing is, I didn't know what I was going to be playing when I first got the call. The original plan was just to be a reference for a call. I don't know if you guys remember in The Mandalorian Season 3 — Zeb appears in the cantina.
They just wanted someone to interact with Paul. I was finishing something else and they said, 'Hey, here are your lines for this part.' We're stunt performers, so I was like, 'I don't know about lines.' And they said, 'No, you have a whole dialogue sequence. I said okay. All they told me was, 'Let's start the dialogue.' That was it. No matter what we do, we approach it with an extreme amount of professionalism. We're stunt people — we rely on physicality. When we get hit by a car, no problem. I won't lose any sleep. But if you ask me to perform a monologue, I'm going to cry all night. That's not what we do. Smash, bang, smash, bang. My girlfriend's an actress, so I told her, 'Honey, they gave me lines. I don't know if I can read them. I don't know what I'm doing... but I'm playing a Lasat. I love Rebels and I know who Zeb is. I just showed up, talked to Paul, memorized my lines, and played it like I thought a Lasat would. Originally, Dave Filoni was in the bar - | don't know if you guys remember the scene. He's sitting next to me and Favreau is directing it. At first I was just supposed to stand there. They'd say, 'Okay, say something... okay, get out of the shot, and Paul would just talk to himself. But they kept having me play with Paul over and over. Eventually they'd do a take without me in it, because that's how we do it in the CG world — but I was in all of them. When I saw it back I was like,
'That's me. I was doing all that.?' Then Filoni told me, 'Yeah, you were playing Zeb? I had no idea. I was like, 'Yeah, sure... big, strong, no problem.' But Zeb's an iconic character, and I'm glad he didn't tell me beforehand. I would have been terrified. There's nobody who tells stunt people everything. You get this much information and they're like, 'Okay, cool, let's have a pilot... I mean a flashback' I had no idea what was going on. I just played it that way. Later the visual effects department said they used everything I did and just put Zeb's face over the top of me. Then I was working on another movie and they said they needed fly you back to play Zeb in Mando & Grogu ... and that's how that happened. When I came back to play Mando and Grogu, I just did it the same way."
Source: @rebelscumcon per @TheRaeSide
Donald Mills, The stunt and suit actor who plays Embo in The Mandalorian and Grogu, has revealed how he developed Embo’s walk and posture before refining his fighting style!
“I watched the animated series as much as I could, over and over again - just watching how he moved, how he looked. And it was kind of easy: just stand there and be as tough as you can. Don't say anything, which is right up my alley. Like I said, I'll sweat through any kind of lines. But just stand there, look tough, and stare at people? That fit me well. We figured out the fighting style first, and then I realized I was going to play him throughout the whole movie too - the walking, the looks. Yeah, I just thought I was going to fight Dumbledore at first. It wasn't prosthetics. I got to wear the full outfit. And luckily, going from season one all the way up, I had already done Stormtrooper and everything else. Embo was the most comfortable outfit I ever had. It was lightweight. Most of these outfits weigh 45-50 pounds while you're running up and down stairs. This was basically jogging pants and nice shoes. I was taken care of pretty well. The hat was custom-fit to me and lightweight. A lot of the times, since we took it on and off so many times, it was just CG - we had a motion sensor on top that kept it there. Unless I was really interacting with it, most of the time it was off with the sensors around my head. It was a styrofoam (dog creature) cutout. I would walk in next to it and sit there so I knew where it was. I didn't know what it was going to look like besides the cartoon."
Source: @rebelscumcon per @TheRaeSide