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Star Wars Rebels NYCC 2015 001Gender doesn’t really matter in the galaxy far, far away… and that’s a good thing.

Executive Producer Dave Filoni and actors Sarah Michelle Gellar (The Seventh Sister), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), and Taylor Gray (Ezra Bridger) shared a preview of the second season of Star Wars Rebels at New York Comic Con, and not only did they share some details about the new season of the hit Disney XD series, but they also offered some insight into the refreshingly gender-balanced cast of the show… and explained why maybe that shouldn’t even be a big deal.

Maybe that’s getting too far ahead.  Here’s the basics: Star Wars Rebels is returning for a second season on October 14th, and we’re being introduced to not one but two new Inquisitors, who are dead set on making life miserable for the crew of the Ghost.  One of those two is the Seventh Sister, voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was beyond thrilled to be involved with the Star Wars universe.  “”I’m in Star Wars! Come On!!” she said.  “For the rest of my life, I am part of this family, part of this lore.”

While Gellar is best known for heroic roles (such as Buffy,of course) she was more than willing to turn to the Dark Side for her new character.  “She’s a thinking villain,” she said of the Seventh Sister, whose unique helmet is based on unused A New Hope concept art by Ralph McQuarrie.  I’m not the only one who pointed out the new Inquisitor‘s sense of style– “[Villains] get the way better outfits,” Gellar laughed.

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The Seventh Sister isn’t the only powerful female character joining the Rebels cast in Season Two.  As we saw in the first season finale, Anakin Skywalker‘s former Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, is back in action.  Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka, is back, too, and she’s discovering a whole new side of the former Jedi. “There’s never been a Jedi like Ahsoka before, someone who walks away,” said Dave Filoni.  As was noted in the Rebels panel, Ahsoka is also among the first characters in the Star Wars mythos whose path has been followed all the way from Padawan to an Obi-Wan like mentor, which she serves as to Ezra Bridger and his Rebel allies.

Eckstein and Filoni’s long-time rapport, working on The Clone Wars and now Rebels, has left them on the same page regarding the evolution of this character.  For her part, Eckstein relied on the writers to sketch out Ahsoka‘s path from the fall of the Republic to her return in Rebels. “I don’t have any input [into the character’s history in between series], but I like to ask a lot of questions,” she said.  “Before you perform, you’ve read the script, and I love when actors ask a lot of questions,” Filoni added. “I think what you see is where we both think Ahsoka would be. I like to keep some things from [Ashley], to spare you from the ending… That’s how I have fun.”

With two new women joining the cast that already includes the Ghost’s pilot Hera, as well as the Mandalorian artist Sabine, some fans are calling Rebels‘ sophomore run “The Season of the Ladies,” but Filoni disagrees.  “To say it’s a ‘season of the ladies’… I’m trying to get to a place where that’s just how it is.  All I can do is create some opportunities– bring some balance to the Force.  We’ve gotta keep that ball rolling.”

“You look past the gender,” added Eckstein. “And that’s how it should be.”

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Bill Sencio

Bill has been writing about toys for more than five years, and collecting them since before he WAS five. When he's not arguing for better representation in all facets of pop culture, he serves as an Editor at KastorsKorner.com, and spends way too much time in the action figure aisles at Target and Toys R Us.