LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy has a cast and crew of fans

The team behind LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy are long-time fans of LEGO and Star Wars – and their passion pays off in the animated series.

The cast and crew of Rebuild the Galaxy is full of LEGO, Star Wars and LEGO Star Wars fans, from showrunners and writers Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez to the actors who bring the characters to life. Without that personal connection, the animated show might never have been made, as Benji confirmed in an interview.

“We [he and Dan] became friends with a lot of people at Lucasfilm and LEGO,” Benji explained. “I think they saw not only how big Star Wars fans we were, with a deep knowledge of all that lore, but [also that] I’m a huge LEGO person.

“They came to us wanting to do a big special and we had to talk about what we could do that would be different from all the previous LEGO Star Wars content that had come before and how we could do something really special .”

This passion is also carried over to the cast

And indeed something special was born in the form of Rebuild the Galaxy, LEGO Star Wars What if..? four part series style. While the show features some twisted takes on iconic characters like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Rey and Threepio (to name a few), there are also some original characters like Stig and Dev Greebling played by Gatan Matarazzo and Tony Revelori.

Both actors are self-confessed LEGO Star Wars fans, or as Tony put it, “huge nerds at heart.”

“I grew up watching these Star Wars movies, and to be able to give my inner younger child everything they wanted as a kid is just awesome,” he said. “The fact that I now have a LEGO set and have my lightsaber as a character is everything I wanted.”

Gaten had a similar Star Wars-filled background, which made transitioning into the role easy, saying, “The Stig is just a big old Star Wars nerd, and that’s exactly what I am, so that helps. I spent about 15 years doing research for this show without even realizing it.”

Perhaps the most highly anticipated addition to the cast for longtime LEGO Star Wars fans was Jedi Bob, played by Bobby Mohnihan. Again, Bobby has fond memories of LEGO both as a child and as an adult, saying, “I’m a fan of all things Star Wars and LEGO.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t have LEGO sets, I just had a big canvas bag that a neighbor had thrown away, with a total of five or six broken sets in it. I played with anything and did my own thing.”

Now, Bobby has some valuable (and complete) LEGO sets, including 43222 Disney Castle, 21330 Home Alone, and—of course—the LEGO Star Wars Rebuild the Galaxy sets that came out this year. It’s these personal connections to the subject that are so clearly felt when talking to the cast and crew, so much so that Dan and Benji even received the highest praise from none other than Mark Hamill himself.

“One of the things [Mark] told us, ‘I read your script and I think you really understand Star Wars. That’s part of the reason I really wanted to do it,” Dan recalled. “It was amazing, the biggest compliment we’ve received in our careers. For Mark Hamill to tell us that we really know Star Wars, I still can’t believe it.”

Made for fans, by fans

A genuine concern for lore and community can be felt in the fact that Rebuild the Galaxy isn’t just a silly animated show. There’s definitely goofy and meme-fueled humor, but there’s also a lot of heart, which both the cast and showrunners have carefully handled with respect.

“It would have been very easy to turn it into a whole bunch of different little sketches and jumping between the stupid Ewok bounty hunter thing and the stupid Darth Jar Jar moment,” Benji said. “But it would get old quite quickly and it was important for us to have a strong Star Wars story with three-dimensional characters at the heart of it. Then everything else, all these gags and funny things, would be in the service of the real story.” – Benji Summit”

“For me as a fan, to play [Jedi Bob] was the best and you want to respect that,” Bobby agreed. “You want people to enjoy themselves. Dan and Benji have done an amazing job bringing this character to life and giving the fans what they deserve, which is a fun, amazing story for a silly little joke on the internet.

“I was happy that I was able to do it with that character, the fact that he was just a Jedi with a beard and a smile. That’s it.”

All four parts of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy special series are now available to watch on Disney+.

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Rachael Davies

I write about all the best fandoms – and of course that means LEGO. Spending so much time looking at and talking about LEGO sets is dangerous to my bank balance, but the LEGO shelves are booming. You win some, you lose some.