The ‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord’ Season 1 Finale With Sam Witwer

Summary

Podcast Summary: House of R – ‘Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord’ Season 1 Finale With Sam Witwer

Podcast: House of R, The Ringer
Episode Date: May 4, 2026
Guests: Sam Witwer (voice of Maul)
Hosts: Mallory Rubin & Joanna Robinson

---

Main Theme

This special May the Fourth episode celebrates the Season 1 finale of “Star Wars: Maul—Shadow Lord,” focusing on the series’ explosive ending, its approach to the complex legacy of Darth Maul, and peeling back the curtain on the creative process with voice actor Sam Witwer. Hosts Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson conduct a deep dive into the finale’s character arcs, themes, big battles, and the show’s philosophical undercurrents—culminating in an insightful, often funny, interview with Witwer about Maul’s evolution and the emotional core of his journey.

---

Episode Breakdown

1. Opening Impressions & Programming Notes (02:05–11:36)

• Hosts declare “Friend of the Pod” month and highlight the significance of doing a Star Wars episode on May 4th (00:06).
• Season-wide spoiler warning: The discussion covers the entire first season, including the two-part finale, and references Maul’s storyline across the Star Wars canon (07:44).
• Preview of upcoming episodes: House of the Dragon, Lestat updates, future guest teasers, and a strong push for fan engagement on social media (04:37–06:40).

2. Season 1 Overall Impressions (11:36–19:09)

• Both hosts express excitement for the series, highlighting its animation art style, action-packed finale, and deep thematic resonance.
• Joanna notes:

  “In Star Wars, a lot of storytelling happens inside of a lightsaber duel ... like a dance number in a musical.” [12:36]

• There is praise for the show’s creative visuals and willingness to place Maul at an emotionally and physically vulnerable crossroads.
• Critiques include a desire for deeper supporting character development (e.g., Maul’s crew, Inquisitors) and more philosophical dialogue.

3. Discussion: The Inquisitors, Vader, & Stakes In the Finale (15:34–27:38)

• The hosts analyze the tension—or lack thereof—around established canon characters, noting that knowing the eventual fates of figures like the Inquisitors slightly diminishes the stakes [15:34].
• Points of comparison are drawn to The Acolyte; the hosts debate the use of Vader, with Joanna observing:

  “I think Star Wars is a bit over reliant … on their trump card, which is Vader, which they will drop anytime they want to bring some shock and awe.” [17:42]

• Yet, both agree Vader’s appearance in Shadow Lord is well-motivated and narratively earned.

4. Finale Breakdown: Big Fights, Key Choices, & Master-Apprentice Dynamics (21:30–38:52)

• Episode 10’s battle choreography and drama are lauded—particularly the emotional/strategic choices made by Maul and their consequences.
• The hosts debate Maul’s decision to sacrifice Daki to Vader and his manipulation of Devon, drawing out the show’s core theme: the blurred lines between good intentions and harmful actions.
• Joanna:

  “I will trade all of you … for Devon. She’s the juicier morsel for me.” [29:24]

• Conversation about season two’s setup, including the ambiguity about which supporting characters (e.g., Lawson, Riley) might return, and speculation on Devon’s fate: will she leave Maul, or will tragedy strike? [30:51–32:53]

5. Interview With Sam Witwer: Inside Maul’s Mind (39:36–91:39)

Maul’s Evolution & Creative Process (40:16–44:18)

• Witwer describes his deep identification with Maul after more than a decade in the role:

  "He is there. He will manifest if I ask him to show up… but what's interesting is that with Shadow Lord, this is, in fact, a new version of the character." [40:16]

• Early creative collaboration with Dave Filoni is discussed, emphasizing a rigorous, months-long process to build out Maul psychologically and emotionally. Witwer highlights the importance of bringing the actor in early for character development [44:04].

Themes: Trauma, Good Intentions, & the Dark Side (41:39–43:43)

• Maul’s vulnerability and perpetual war with himself form the core of Witwer’s performance:

  "He's trying to do things… effect a positive change. But between the good intentions and the actions is a giant gulf." [42:21]

• The show aims to illustrate that even the dark side is often an inner civil war—Maul is no cartoon villain, but a personifying struggle.

Behind the Scenes: The Birth of Maul’s Voice (47:47–54:48)

• Witwer shares how he learned to be a voice actor on The Mortis arc, guided by Filoni to create a voice character who could echo all dark side Star Wars characters, leading to Maul’s distinct sound.
• The process involved blending traits from Vader, Palpatine, Dooku, and others—always filtered through Maul’s pain and rage.

Philosophy, Mastery, and Moral Hypocrisy (62:08–68:42)

• The core of the finale: Maul’s manipulation of Devon and Daki, his self-perceived good intentions, and his blindness to his own hypocrisy:

  “So Maul has this good intent, but… there’s a gulf between the intent and the action.” [66:24] “He was raised by Palpatine. These are the tools he has at his disposal... From the outside [Maul and Palpatine] look a lot similar.” [66:32]

Maul vs. Vader: What Does He Know? (63:49–76:49)

• Maul’s showdown with Vader is a series highlight. Witwer and the hosts discuss the psychology and mechanics of the fight (Maul’s damaged cyborg body, Vader’s foreknowledge and brute force).
• Sam explains Maul’s growing horror as he recognizes in Vader the fulfillment of his worst nightmares and Sidious’s “end of the world” instrument.

Notable Quotes:

• “[Vader] knows exactly what he’s doing… It’s not, in any stretch of the imagination, a fair fight. But it is a rich fight and full of character and interest…” – Sam Witwer [74:21–74:31]
• “Maul is being more reflective in this series than we’ve ever seen him to be. But … I do eventually have to go, you know, I don’t know if I agree with this guy…” – Sam Witwer [68:45]

Character Vulnerability & The Physical (71:03–84:20)

• Maul’s cyborg limitations are explored, with Witwer noting the way physical failure becomes metaphorical:

  "If Daki kicks him in the knee… that is a horrifying, emotional wound that Daki is aggravating right there." [84:20]

The Jedi vs. Sith Debate (84:20–87:06)

• Sam unpacks a sly duel in the show about which ideology—Jedi self-reflection or Sith aggression—will survive hardship, noting how quick answers from the dark side can seem satisfying, but are not always true.

Maul’s Loneliness and the Need to Be Chosen (87:10–88:51)

• Discussion of Maul’s endless search for a true apprentice and sense of belonging—tying his villainous pursuits back to a need for validation and fear of abandonment.

Apple Wars Epilogue (89:33–91:26)

• In trademark House of R fashion, the interview takes a silly turn as the trio debate the best apple variety (a nod to recurring pod bits), with Sam Witwer landing on “balance in the Force” (91:14).

---

Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [12:36] — Joanna compares lightsaber battles to musical dance numbers, underscoring their narrative power.
• [17:42] — Joanna’s critique of Vader as a franchise “trump card”—but praises his use in this specific story.
• [29:24] — Joanna on Maul’s ruthless prioritization of Devon as apprentice.
• [42:21] — Witwer on the gap between Maul’s intentions and actions.
• [62:41] — The hosts on Maul’s self-image vs. the reality of his manipulations.
• [74:21] — Witwer describes the tactics and unfairness of the Maul/Vader duel.
• [87:10] — Mallory and Sam on Maul’s core longing: “Choose me… the way my mentor did not choose me.”

---

Memorable Quotes

• “He is trying his best… but he’s always at war with himself.” – Sam Witwer [41:53]
• “Simplicity doesn’t always equate to truth.” – Sam Witwer [86:12]
• “The Jedi path is actually superior. But even through this season… Maul did not really witness that.” – Sam Witwer [86:54]
• “Maul... needs to live his entire life in the pursuit of being chosen.” – Mallory [87:44]

---

Episode Tone & Language

• Engaged, analytical, and affectionate toward Star Wars lore and characters.
• Conversational and humorous, with in-jokes and tangents (e.g., the Apple Wars).
• Sam Witwer is passionate, philosophical, and occasionally self-deprecating.

---

Key Takeaways

• Shadow Lord uses Maul’s journey to interrogate the failures and seductions of both the Jedi and Sith philosophies.
• The series, and especially its finale, is visually dynamic and rich in both action and narrative significance—though the hosts crave deeper development for some side characters.
• Sam Witwer’s meticulous approach to Maul, shaped by close creative partnership with Star Wars luminaries (esp. Dave Filoni), brings nuance and tragic humanity to the character.
• Season two promises an even tighter focus on Maul and Devon’s master-apprentice dynamic—and the ever-blurring line between hero, villain, and victim.

---

For Listeners New & Old

This episode is essential listening for Star Wars animation fans, for anyone fascinated by the inner lives of villains, or those simply looking for a passionate, searching conversation on storytelling, myth, and the unending search for belonging in a galaxy far, far away.

Transcript

[Joanna]

Foreign.

[Mallory]

And welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. May the fourth be with you.

[Joanna]

May the fourth be with you. And also with you.

[Mallory]

Oh my goodness. We're recording a Star wars pod on May the fourth and that's just fun.

[Joanna]

That's very special for us.

[Mallory]

That's just a fun thing we get to do. You know what else is fun? We got to talk to Sam fucking Witwer. We really did call himself.

[Joanna]

We really did.

[Mallory]

About season one of Maul shadowlord. The very action packed and eventful finale. And Maul as a character who we have adored for eons on end and will for eons on end from here. We're going to explain the pod right after this. This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target. Call it all trainers. The Pokemon in target collection celebrating 30 years of Pokemon is almost here and the lineup is kind of incredible. A few are sure to be fan

[Joanna]

faves, Pokemon starter jackets, mystery water type Pokemon bottles, and even caboodles.

[Mallory]

Which feels perfect because Pokemon has always been about sharing the adventure and Target is bringing fans together to celebrate that spirit.

[Joanna]

The first drop is in store May

[Mallory]

2 online May 3 with the second drop June 6.

[Joanna]

Explore [e-mail] the playoffs are here and

[Sam Witwer]

you can predict the action all the way to the finals with FanDuel Predict. Predict the spread, total points and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC. Registered Futures Commission Merchant 18 bonus is non withdrawable and expires 7 days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See [e-mail] prediction bonus offer terms.

[Mallory]

Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk a little bit at the top. Just about our overall impressions of the season. Some highlights, some big events and happenings.

[Joanna]

Spoiler warning.

[Mallory]

Spoiler warning starts now.

[Joanna]

They dropped the episodes. Midnight early drop. Early drop.

[Mallory]

So here we are. I'm like fresh off an airplane basically.

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Mallory]

But we were not going to let a minute pass right before talking about this finale because a ton happened.

[Joanna]

Gleam in Mallory's eyes is jet lag. So here we are.

[Mallory]

Exactly. Usually it's just mania. Now it's mania and jet lag. We're going to just talk for a little bit at the top and then we're going to get to our interview with Sam because we were treated to a really long, wonderful chat with Sam who Is unsurprisingly, a delightful hang and just so thoughtful about a character who he has inhabited and embodied for more than a decade. So it was a wonderful chat. We talked about some things that happened in the finale, but also just like, what is it like to play Maul? How does he inhabit that headspace? Where's the character going in the future? Why was this moment of the timeline so crucial to explore? We had a great time. We got into the Apple Wars a little bit. It was wonderful.

[Joanna]

A lot bit.

[Mallory]

Here's what is coming. Not just today, but but the rest of the month also. Again, it's like the morning of May 4th. So if there's other Star wars news later today, we're gonna talk about it Thursday when we're back. We'll get to it. We're like, let's get to the studio this morning. We will be talking about the Daredevil born Again Season 2 finale later this week, which neither of us have seen.

[Joanna]

No, I have. You're still mourning Daniel Blake. It's like so sad still.

[Mallory]

So I'm excited to be back and chatting with you about that at the end of the week.

[Joanna]

And then you have now seen shirtless Buck Cashman.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah.

[Mallory]

You sent me some important text messages

[Joanna]

and performance of American Psycho.

[Mallory]

Deeply captivating. I care about you. Deeply captivating. It's Friend of the Pod month. So we are hoping throughout the month to sprinkle in guests. And you say that it's a thing.

[Joanna]

We've decided to make May. We've decided to make it a Friend of the Pod month. We're starting with Sam Witmer, our best friend who is here, longtime friend of the Pod.

[Mallory]

We have considered him a friend of the POD for some time.

[Joanna]

He didn't know, but now he knows. Friend of the Pod Sam Whitman were. And we have a bunch of other pals that, that are planning to drop by this month.

[Mallory]

We'll tease them as they get a little closer and we're more confident that each of them is happening. It's going to be, it's going to be a great hang here on this big couch. We have, you know, we've got more pillows. We got to put them to use. So that's all coming throughout the month, obviously. We now have a House of the Dragon date for June. We know some big movie dates. We've got an action packed summer ahead of us, including Lestat. Give us the update.

[Joanna]

34 days until the vampire Lestat premieres. 29 days until the recently announced Lestat live concert that they're doing one night only.

[Mallory]

One night only is almost. I mean, it's great. You eventize it, you know, you create the fomo. It's smart. Is it almost cruel?

[Joanna]

It is. And it's cruel for it to only be in New York City. But my understanding is that tickets are actually, like, free for fans and that May 6th is when they'll be released. So there's gonna be a stampede to the old, I don't know, amc.com or whatever. I don't work for them. I don't know what their URL is, but I understand the tickets are free, which is cool. They're not charging fans to do this. They're gonna screen the premiere, and then Sam Reid's gonna do some songs.

[Mallory]

Just incredible. Incredible. To quote you via text, Primal Scream.

[Joanna]

Yeah, Primal Scream.

[Mallory]

Joanna. How can everybody follow along?

[Joanna]

What a great question.

[Mallory]

Tell me.

[Joanna]

We have our very own social handles on Instagram, TikTok at House of our pod. Did we make Sam Whitmore do some bits for the social only? Yes. So if you would like to see Sam be charming as all fuck on both this episode, but also follow our handles on Instagram and TikTok, you can follow. You can subscribe to the podcast. Why not? What a great idea.

[Mallory]

I'd recommend it.

[Joanna]

Yeah, we got a lot coming up. Why not? Why not do it? Friend of the Pod month. And listen, follow Ringerverse also on a number of social media platforms of their choice. And then hobbitsanddragonsmail.com keep the emails coming, man. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you.

[Mallory]

Inbox is always open.

[Joanna]

Yeah, we hear from you guys aplenty. Someone invited us to their wedding, and then I got a, like, reminder that we were invited to their wedding. We won't be going, but we really appreciate the invite, so thank you so much.

[Mallory]

Consider your wedding blessed by our.

[Joanna]

I just. I got the reminder email. I was like, oh, my God. Who's like. Because I have a goldfish brain. I was like, whose wedding is this? And I was like, all right, the listeners, thank you so much for the invite. Uh, we hope your wedding's amazing.

[Mallory]

Should we just, like, improv some vows right now? Um, you do a haiku like Coach would.

[Joanna]

Wow.

[Mallory]

Yeah.

[Joanna]

Will you give me a betrothal nickname?

[Mallory]

It's Wolf of Quiet Pines, which is the nickname he gave Riley. Is just historic stuff. Alzheimer's all timer. It's hard to top. I think everyone else has to retire from the nickname game.

[Joanna]

That's a good, like, subtle. Friend of the Pod month. Teaser. Just saying.

[Mallory]

People are gonna think it's coach.

[Joanna]

It's not Coach.

[Mallory]

Can you imagine? That would be incredible.

[Joanna]

What if we. I know that like your longtime pod nickname has been Mother of Dragon. Mallory has been Mother of Dragons.

[Mallory]

That's right.

[Joanna]

What if we change it to Mother of Preston? Does that. Is that as regal as well?

[Mallory]

Where's Preston today?

[Joanna]

There he is.

[Mallory]

I'm afraid he's gonna catch fire, but I've been assured that that's not a concern. And it's both because of, you know, he's on a phoenix, but also just in general his proximity to a light bulb. In a fair.

[Joanna]

If Preston caught fire and wound up being kind of like burnt and scabbed, doesn't that seem like in keeping with who Preston is?

[Mallory]

It does. And also you'd be able to see that on HouseOfArpod, on Instagram and TikTok.

[Joanna]

So again, follow along YouTube, Spotify video

[Mallory]

pods, full video episodes of House of R. Once more we will just issue our spoiler warning. We're talking about everything that happened in all of season one of Star Wars. Colon, Colon, Mal, Shadowlord, Shadow Lord. We're gonna get into what happened in the two part finale episodes nine and ten, which dropped overnight this morning. They're fresh, they're, they're short, you know, 25 minutes each. Ish. So if you haven't yet seen them, hit pause, go watch them. Within an hour, you'll be back. If it happened in the finale, if it happened in the first season and just to be clear, like if it has ever happened to mall including in the past of our actual lives of consuming but in the future of the canon timeline, like some stuff that's in Rebels we did talk about with Sam could come up, et cetera. If it's happened in Star wars ever, you've been warned.

[Joanna]

We know how he dies.

[Mallory]

Great episode and so should you. Any other spoiler warnings, programming reminders, announcements, set deck observations, anything else?

[Joanna]

I'm just really excited for Friend of the Pod month. Like we've got a lot of same fun.

[Mallory]

If you would like to be our friend, if you are our friend and you'd like to come on the pot, let us know.

[Joanna]

We do have a few spots open. We do have a couple spots.

[Mallory]

We do have a couple spots.

[Joanna]

We, we got a lot of messages about this. I will say, did we try to get Wilson Bethel on the pod for Thursday?

[Mallory]

We did. I haven't given up hope yet.

[Joanna]

It did not work out. But like everyone's like my favorite tweet That I saw once we announced that Sam Witward was on the podcast.

[Mallory]

Yeah.

[Joanna]

Was someone on Twitter posted a photo of me with Timothy Oliphant and me with Sam Witworth. Like, Joanna's out here collecting infinity stones. Like Wilson Bethel next. Well, Wilson Bethel.

[Mallory]

Who knows what will happen?

[Joanna]

Declined the honor. But we will have other friends.

[Mallory]

Scheduling conflicts.

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Mallory]

Could those scheduling conflicts still vanish? We have three days until we're recording that podcast, so I've not given up.

[Joanna]

Call your local lawmaker.

[Mallory]

Make it known that you demand to see your governor on House of R. Yeah, yeah.

[Joanna]

Make it happen.

[Mallory]

Seems like a good use of everybody's.

[Joanna]

I think so. There's nothing else going on politically that I need to worry about. Getting Bullseye in the pot is very important. I mean, right here, the pillow's a weight.

[Mallory]

Should we just, like, put Bullseyes? Carlos, can you. No. Can you get a.

[Joanna]

Can we.

[Mallory]

Who's really great at graphic design. Let's get a Bullseye right now.

[Joanna]

I think it's a little surprising given the number of, like, cardboard cutout standees people have sent to me over the years. Including you. I have sent it to you. I think it's a little surprising that no one has sent me a Bullseye card. Should we get one? He. He can just be. He can be, like, carefully fold creased in half.

[Mallory]

Answer honestly. What would you. Because the cardboard catat. It's a. It's a moment in time that's frozen forever in cardboard. Do you want the Bullseye cardboard cutout to be him? Change shirtless to bed?

[Joanna]

No, that's. That's too intimate for everyday use, I say.

[Mallory]

Or is it just intimate enough?

[Joanna]

I say it's, like, in his. Like, I'm getting a milkshake, and I'm going to kill a bunch of people. Get up. That's. That's the vibe. I'm feeding an egg to a cat sort of episode.

[Mallory]

Feeding an egg to a cat was wonderful. You constantly want to be reminded of the banana milkshake that you found appalling and I thought sounded delicious.

[Joanna]

I want to be reminded of a man who takes action against the criminals who are running around the city, AKA the avtf.

[Mallory]

Great stuff. Well, speaking of a man who takes action, it is time to talk about our beloved mall. We're gonna get to the opening snapshot. Okay, again, since we have this wonderful chat with Sam, we're going to keep it quick today. We're not going, like, beat by beat. We're not doing a deep dive, but we're going to hit Some. Some highlights. Let's just start with, like, overall impressions. We were very excited for the show. Did season one meet the hype? How did you feel about season one of Shadowlord?

[Joanna]

Yeah, I mean, I think. I think fundamentally, actually, our conversation with Sam, like, really enhanced my enjoyment of the season because Sam is so thoughtful in the way that he talks about Maul and the way he talks about the way what stories they want to tell, what aspects of his character. He gave some, like, rewatching these after we talked to him. Rewatching these episodes with his words in my mind really, really deepened my. My love and affection for them. I think it's an undeniably beautiful. There are some shots in the finale. You know, we. We end with sort of, like, close up Amal's face and just those, like, very, like, brushwork style of animation around. You know, it just looks painted and beautiful. So I think that's incredible. You know, the last two episodes were essentially like, two long fight scenes. And, you know, in Star wars, and Sam talks about this a bit, but, like, in Star Wars, a lot of storytelling happens inside of a lightsaber duel.

[Mallory]

Absolutely.

[Joanna]

It's like a dance number in a musical. Like, you can do a lot of storytelling inside of. Of a lightsaber duel, but it's still, like, I would have loved even more sort of monologues or, you know, people talking in rooms and stuff like that to. To underpin some of the action. I think the action looked incredible throughout this season. I think I would have liked to have known Maul's crew a bit more. You know, like, we. We mourn Spy Bot. We're, like, really upset that Spy Bot is gone, but, like, his entire crew got wiped out. And I didn't really feel like I. I knew them very well before they're gone. And then we're gonna talk about the Inquisitors. The Inquisitors look incredibly cool, but, like, are still kind of ciphers at the end of the day. So, like, action, incredible style, incredible. Some of the themes and especially what Sam talks about. Really, really thoughtful and cool. But I guess what I want for season even and deeper and get into more of the philosophy, I could just listen to Mal talk all day long. So that's how I feel about it. How about you?

[Mallory]

I loved it. I mean, I'm such a fan of the Star wars animated shows and often genuinely do think they're Star wars at its best. And I think my feelings about Rebels and Clone wars are long established house of Our canon at this point, but Bad Batch and the Tales of Blank series recently. And, I mean, like, the. The Lego rebuild the galaxy thing is just. That's a completely different, you know, aspect of Star wars storytelling, but just the ability to really express some of the visions, like express something really creative and visually arresting, and then use these animated series as an opportunity to open up our understanding of a character in a new moment of the timeline that connects to another point in the timeline. I just really, like, love these shows, so I thought this was really great. I'm excited to spend more time with Maul. I It. Your points just now. Rook and Icarus and the commandos in general. 11th brother are the. Like, I can't believe Mar is back. Just astonishing stuff. I think that given, you know, how much. And we talked about this at the beginning of the season, we talked about this a little bit with Sam. There was a real, I think, a wise and important effort to say at the beginning of this show, you don't need to feel like you have to do a ton of homework and watch a bazillion hours of these other shows in order to hang in order to follow this. It'll be very inviting and very friendly if you just want to opt in. And I think that's true if you have other experiences with Rook and the Mandalorian stretch for Maul and the Commandos and who those characters are or thinking about, like, the future of 11th Brother and Maruk. I don't know that it makes it the most riveting part of Shadowlord, but it's probably, like, slightly more intriguing.

[Joanna]

But I think.

[Mallory]

No, I know you do. Yeah, of course. But I think in actually, in some ways, maybe it made it a little bit less impactful, counterintuitively, because with the Inquisitors in particular, I don't think we've talked about this a lot. That Star wars deaths are the. Or any death in any story is the only way to establish stakes. That's not how I feel about it. That's not how we feel about it. However, knowing definitively, definitively that 11th brother is making it out of those fights, that Maruk is making it out of those fights, it's, I think, ever so slightly diminished, the tension of, like, whether those characters are gonna be okay now. It's interesting to think about, like, as Ahsoka fans, the fact that those characters are both, in different ways, on a collision course toward showdowns with Ahsoka, that Maul has this history with Ahsoka, that's where I think the wider web of connections is, like, interesting for Me. But in general, I think the Inquisitors, you know, mostly like outside of Rebels and some comics canon, they're like. Like, they look incredible. They look incredible.

[Joanna]

I. Yeah, but it's real Knights of Ren stuff where I'm like, this looks great. But like, when you think about. And you know, obviously we're gonna talk about Vader a bunch in a second. And there's just so much around Vader as just a piece of iconography that you can never say, like, Vader's presence feels at all thin. Like, that's not something that's possible with a Vader. But I was thinking a lot in the way this is set up, maybe just cause there were so many lightsabers flying around. I was thinking of the episode of Acolyte, a show we didn't like entirety of, but that episode night that we thought was so incredible. And I was just thinking about Chimere the Stranger and like all the other characters and. And even though that show didn't successfully like deepen every single character, it had to present us, like, there was just so much more story wrapped up in a similar sort of like misty nighttime, so many sabers involved kind of showdown. And so the non Vader part of this sort of paled in comparison to that for me.

[Mallory]

But with Vader, yeah, it was just fantastic.

[Joanna]

It's interesting because you and I usually kind of disagree about the use of Vader, whereas I think Star wars is a bit over reliant. That's an understatement. I think they're quite dependent on their trump card, which is Vader, which they will drop anytime they want to bring some shock and awe to something. And I think. I think often it has not been worth it, and then sometimes it's incredibly worth it. And I think, you know, like in the various, like Ahsoka encounters, incredibly worth it.

[Mallory]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Joanna]

You know, I didn't think it worked very well in the Obi Wan series, but here, and especially again, hearing Sam talk about it like Vader and Maul fighting each other, there is real reason for that story to exist. And so it didn't just feel like, well, if we throw Vader at it, like, people will be excited and impressed. There's just like real, real storytelling reason for this to exist. And that was like what Sam and the people who worked on the show said from the beginning, which is like, we don't want to do this mall show just to like show you Maul who you love and show you lightsabers, which you love. And like Bring in Vader, which is always fun, et cetera, et cetera. We want to make sure we have real story that we're telling here. And so I like this is contrary to my usual like Anakin Skywalker again, you know, but this was like, this was really important.

[Mallory]

This episode is brought to you by Target. Time to talk about one of the most fun pieces from the Pokemon in Target 30th Celebration Collection. The mystery water type Pokemon bottles.

[Joanna]

Keyword mystery. Each bottle features a different water type Pokemon, but you don't know which one you've got until you open it.

[Mallory]

Which, if you're a Pokemon fan, should feel very familiar.

[Joanna]

We opened ours. Yes. I got Psyduck.

[Mallory]

I got Squirtle. So we're calling all trainers. If you want to see which Pokemon you can get, you can find them only at Target for a limited time. Explore [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweetgreen's new wraps have got you real ingredients. Zero shortcuts, everything you love in one hand. Think Green Goddess chicken, garlic aioli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa. 40 grams of protein made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweetgreen wraps hit different order [e-mail]

[Sam Witwer]

this episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with Internet, advanced wi fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24. 7 US based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit spectrum.combusiness to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

[Mallory]

I think that's another thing for the Inquisitors. It's like on the one hand, it makes perfect sense shortly after order 66 for them to be out on the hunt in such an active way, for them to be engaged in the field with Vader, like all of those things track completely. But then it's like the measuring stick is the ultimate measuring stick of like, how cool and how interesting is this Vader emerging from the mist. You hear the sound before you see him. It just gives you that feeling. As a Star wars fan, I thought the Vader in general, I really loved. The fighting in episode 10. In particular the acid pool stuff in nine. Less interesting to me. But though, again, RIP Spybot, we miss you dearly. The genuinely devastating gasped aloud in horror.

[Joanna]

Real hot Bummer.

[Mallory]

I mean, the combo, too, of the sweet swirling lightsaber slice and then the melting in a vat of acid. Very tough. Just.

[Joanna]

Sam, give us that update on microphone, or was it after we stopped recording?

[Mallory]

I honestly can't remember.

[Joanna]

Okay.

[Mallory]

Because that was many, many days ago.

[Joanna]

If he didn't do it on microphone, we'll give you the follow up on Thursday. When he talked about Spybot, I thought

[Mallory]

that the action in episode 10, first of all, just the setting, these ruins on Jan X, and then the clashing lightsabers. You have all. You have the blue, you have the red, you have the double sa, the double blades, et cetera. It looked great. It looked cool. The way that people were using their surroundings. Then you have, of course, like, the stormtroopers, you've got Lawson, you've got two boots, you've got the firing blasters. It was like kind of. The choreography was interesting. Who paired off with whom, when was interesting. What choices did people make was interesting. I thought that what it told us to the story front, to the story point, what it told us about, like, where are we with Maul and his recruitment of Devon with Daki, who, like, I think we were both astonished made it this far.

[Joanna]

I thought he was gonna be gone, like, episode three. He made it all. My guy made it all the way to the finale.

[Mallory]

If someone had set the over under in episode six, I think everyone would have hammered the under. Just no question, you know, who was gonna not like. I think we all felt pretty confident that this was gonna end with Mal and Devin setting off on some new journey of master and apprentice. Apprentice from the beginning, but, like, the question of how and why, was it because Daki died? Was it because Maul killed him? Was it because she made an active cheat? She made an active choice because she had no choice. Like, so the particulars of actually getting to see what unfolded and how and what remains a mystery to her is very interesting. But just seeing two Darth Sidious apprentices here sensing something about each other through the Force, and especially because, like, so, Maul and Vader have dueled in Legends canon, but not in proper canon, obviously in Clone wars, the end of Clone wars episodes we just adore. In the conclusion of Clone wars, we hear Maul talk to Ahsoka about Anakin, talk about this idea of Sidious Grand Plan that filters into this season quite actively. You know, later in Twin Sons with Obi Wan and Rebels, he's talking about the Chosen One. There's an engagement in that way. Obviously, they are both on Malachor and the two part finale, Twilight of the Apprentice and Rebels. But to actually watch them trade saber blows, I was like, just crack and catnip. As a Star wars fan, I thought it was incredible. But the part that was the best about it, I think undeniably was that, you know, you see that moment, Maul is like, no, no, no, no. Daki is like, that's bro. That's a Sith Lord. Like, to have these two characters who have such shared history and such an impact on each other's lives in the course of their lives, actually an inch away from each other's faces, and then making decisions that will impact not only their own circumstances, but the wider galactic history was incredible. So, like, Maul, you know, Maul getting. You've been tracking his injuries and the physical limitations throughout the season and like, Vader just comes in right away and knows where to hit him, right?

[Joanna]

The.

[Mallory]

Yeah, the power of the blows.

[Joanna]

Sam gave a really good answer about this, so I would love to like, yeah, Sam talking about all the physicality is so good. But I'm curious what you think about Vader as like a silent figure inside of this episode. He's not talking.

[Mallory]

I think that's for the best.

[Joanna]

Rasping. Yeah. So tell me, like, how does that impact?

[Mallory]

I think if he just comes in and is like saying something very directly. First of all, it robs us of getting to watch Maul try to puzzle this out in real time. And so much of this is about their respective connections not only to the Force, but to the idea of their role in somebody's plan, their own plan. And so I think if Vader is just like talking, it's a little less interesting because it makes him less of an opaque presence. Not for us, but for Maul, I really figured out. So I thought that was just a great choice.

[Joanna]

I really agree. Like, I think, I think the way that he's just bumping up, he's frustrated and bumping up against someone who's not giving him anything. Right? Like, you're no Inquisitor, that's no moon, you're no Inquisitor. You know what I mean? But not getting, you know, Vader's not about to be caught monologuing and being like, well, yes, actually I replaced you and like, blah, blah, and all this sort of stuff like that. And so I thought that was like really smart to not have him talk inside of this episode. And I don't know how much of that is informed. I don't know what the state of like, Vader Voice stuff is for them right now. I actually don't know what the realities of that are, but from a storytelling point of view, I actually really quite liked it. There's this moment when Maul is like leaning against a stone wall and then like, gets up and has like a half a second to be like. And then Vader just like, comes.

[Mallory]

That was scary, actually.

[Joanna]

Koolaid man, bursting through the wall, like, hand first. Very good.

[Mallory]

Yeah, it was awesome. And their controvers contrast and styles and circumstances. It was all just really, really riveting and fun to watch, I think. Also, it kind of fit. The silence fits with this larger presence of, like, what information do people have and when? Because also that's true for Devin, right? Like, we have this, you know, the strange alliances. Right. And that was kind of fascinating too, to watch. And that's across the season, not just here at the end, who has, like, sort of found themselves working with. With either nominal enemies or active foes as recently as an episode prior, who used to be aligned, and then there was a rift, and then they made their way back to each other looking at YouTube, boots, you piece of shit, et cetera. But, you know, to watch Mall, Daki, Devin engaging in combat together despite Docky's persistent fear. And right at the end, like, the fact that he's in your head, that he's calling you, like, be on guard, right? All of it.

[Joanna]

But also Mall, if you want to visit me and my dreams, you're welcome to.

[Mallory]

She's available.

[Joanna]

The channels are open.

[Mallory]

She's available. The fact that, like, this crucial moment, this choice that Maul makes, which, like, we will get to hear from Maul himself, from Sam, what he thinks is going through Maul's head in that moment of. Of decisive, the choice to walk away.

[Joanna]

Not just walk away, but he, like, force pushes Daki. He force Vader so tough.

[Mallory]

So tough. And they had been together, then they had split. Maul does this thing, he makes this choice. He has his reasons, but those reasons still put him in a place of being a person that he has spent his life resenting. Undeniably. Devon doesn't see that. She sees the outcome, but not his complicity in it. So there's an absence there of information for her too.

[Joanna]

What story is he gonna tell her?

[Mallory]

Exactly. And like, that, man, the fact that we get that, like, voice distortion on Devon, I mean, obviously, just the thrill of seeing her take the saber and like, did she go and bleed her own Kyber crystal? Not yet, but still.

[Joanna]

But taking the other, having Maul Having the twin blades that can separate and him giving her the other half. Like two halves of a best friend necklace.

[Mallory]

Exactly.

[Joanna]

Is pretty good. Shit.

[Mallory]

Talk about master and apprentice. Like actually sharing that tool of violence after all of the. Tap into your age. Tap into your age. And then it's like to watch it surface, to hear it surface, to see it in her eyes. The way she says at the end, I'm ready. And that kind of like crinkle smile on his face of like, okay, here it is. The thing that I have been seeking. And so like, you know, I will kill them all. That's the voice distortion part for Devin. And he's like, like, you're not strong enough yet, but I'm gonna get you there. I'm gonna train you and that's what you need. I'm gonna tell you it's what you need and it's what I want. This is a really interesting place for us to be. At the end. Maul lost a lot of members of like, his crew.

[Joanna]

Yeah. But that was the math. That was the trolley problem Matthew was willing to make. He's like, no question. Basically, I will trade all of you. Yes. You two rook cast for Devin. She's the juicier morsel for me. And what's interesting to me is like, yeah, what story will he tell? And like, who else in this cast is going to be in season two is a question that I have because, like, you know, you and I both are like, you can't fool me with a run into the mist, like potential fake out death for Lawson. But I could also see like Lawson and Riley and Two Boots, like not even being in season two. If they wanted to strip down the cast even further. I think it would be a shame to lose like Two Boots most of all. As a favorite Ayoade fan. Yeah, I love his politics, especially not Richard Iowade. But two Booth. But. But like, I don't know, I'm curious, I'm curious, like, how much do we strip down to master and Apprentice? And in contrast to the point you were making about the inquisitors, like, we know those two inquisitors are gonna be fine. We know that Devin and Mal are not together forever. No. And that's a kind of filling in the gap storytelling that I like where I'm just sort of like. But I don't know what's gonna happen. Is it. Is it that Devon dies? Like Maul kills her or Maul kills her or Vader kills her or something like that, or. And this is like always My preference to give me something more interesting. Does she make a choice to leave him? Do they have a like more if

[Mallory]

you had to say now, put money down now.

[Joanna]

I think based on some things that Sam said in our interview, he didn't give any spoilers, but just sort of like based on the future attitude Mah has towards other characters. I think she decides to leave and he lets her go. That would be my.

[Mallory]

Oh, I think it's the opposite. No, I think. I think she will decide to leave too. I don't know about the letting her go part, but I think he will be destroyed once again by the idea of not being chosen. I think the question is he's going to be devastated, but I don't think future is this, but I don't think

[Joanna]

he's going to stop her is what

[Mallory]

I think Rebels is like so far in the future of the canon. We also have, of course, you know, his Hollow chat with Kira and Solo, of course. And so we have Dryden Boss.

[Joanna]

Everyone's thinking about Solo.

[Mallory]

That's close to the. But still pretty far away. Like, is Devon still with him then? You know how much of the story of the future of Maul in these next years of the canon are the Master and apprentice stuff? How much Crime Syndicate still.

[Joanna]

So you're saying they should release Solo back in theaters, a respecialized edition with Devin, just like in the background of the Hollow.

[Mallory]

I mean, they've done it before in Star Wars. I know they've done it before. Let's get Devon right in the little corner of the Hollow. It could happen. I think the fact that Devin's like I will kill them all about Darth Vader does at least of course leave open the possibility that she just like gets killed by Darth Vader at some point or the Inquisitors. That can happen. But I agree with you. It'd be much more interesting, especially if this is like a decent chunk of time and they really. They go through their training. She has fallen to the dark side. And then she. I mean, we've seen a Star wars redemption story before, but they work for a reason. If she pulls herself out of that into another path and Maul once again is like, I have not been. Of course, Maul has also lost people in other ways. You know, Savage Opress, Mother Tolson, et cetera. It's not always people just choosing someone else. Sometimes they are killed brutally, forever a lonely boy. Palpy killing his new apprentice would also be. That would be the ultimate wound for him. 1A 1B with her just deciding to leave, have this one thing that would also be amazing. Not that I'm rooting for Devon to be killed, to be clear, but sounds

[Joanna]

like you are, you know, you don't like women.

[Mallory]

It's canon. It's canon. So we lost Spybot Brutal. We lost Daki later than we thought. Various members of Mall's crew, as we noted. And then so Lawson, are we like officially saying we don't think he's dead? So he took, he did take a couple blaster wounds.

[Joanna]

He did.

[Mallory]

But you know, he puts people out

[Joanna]

very sabers to the gut in various live action Star wars shows and they've been fine.

[Mallory]

So yeah, it's not even like, show me a corpse in Star Wars. It's like whatever is beyond.

[Joanna]

You've been, you've been cut in half, you're fine, no problems.

[Mallory]

Just like them all. Exactly. Get some spider. Like. So I think it's possible that Lawson is still alive. I think it's interesting that Riley thinks he's dead though, because Riley and Devin, I mean, he's like, Lawson's like two boots. Get Riley to his mom over in the Empire. So maybe just Riley begins his like life as a Empire stooge. But the fact that he and Devin, these two teens who have kind of already hit it off over a number of episodes now have this trauma bond of like.

[Joanna]

Yeah, but it's interesting cause Riley goes like internal and she goes rage external. And I do think it would be interesting to have these two characters grappling with similar like parallel losses, but in different ways. And if he's the pull to the light side now that Docky's gone or something like that for her. I did, you know, this morning sort of check out some people's like recaps, reviews or whatever of the episode. And a lot of people were like, we don't think Riley's gonna be in the upcoming seasons. And I'm like, I don't know. I think Star Wars Animation wants a couple teenage characters. You know, like they, I think they like to have young characters around your ahsokas, your era, your whatever, to like, you know, engage young people watching the show. So I think as much as I want to watch a psychosexual drama between Devin and Mal, that's what Acolyte season two is supposed to be. You know, I think Star Wars Animation wants to get give us a romp adventure with a couple of teens along for the ride.

[Mallory]

So, you know, yeah, I'm curious to see what happens with the whole Lawson family.

[Joanna]

I don't. Is it interesting that mall Shadowlord season 2 is set up to be kind of what Acolyte Season 2 was going to be?

[Mallory]

Yes. I think that these stories about Acolyte's second life on streaming. I mean, it was on streaming, but the Discovery, I'm like, I haven't totally given up hope that there's a future there, I guess. Is it possible that they could say, let's still do it.

[Joanna]

It. Let's do it.

[Mallory]

Why not?

[Joanna]

Why not? Let's do it. We had our many notes for Acolyte season one, but we had some positive things to say.

[Mallory]

Absolutely. So that would be fun if we got to do Acolyte season at some point.

[Joanna]

Acolyte was largely like, there's so much good here. We would love to excavate the good for season two.

[Mallory]

I would love to see it excavate those back scars and back muscles. And there's a lot of stuff about the stranger's back that was very important.

[Joanna]

Very important scene cinema.

[Mallory]

Obviously, even if we one day had the pleasure of watching Acolyte Season 2, nobody would be able to say that Maul didn't have a claim to. I'm gonna train you now as a storyline so we can do it with Maul no matter what. What balance do you want between the Master and Apprentice story with Maul and Devin, given how central that is not just to Maul's canon but to his psychology with the crime Syndicate stuff now that Dryden Voss is here?

[Joanna]

Yeah. Can I say 99.9% master and apprentice stuff?

[Mallory]

Okay, so not a lot for Dryden Vos and his face scars, I have to say. Not a fan.

[Joanna]

I. I don't think they did a great job matching Paul Bettany's, like, yeah, charisma.

[Mallory]

I did think he looked hot as a cartoon. He looked good.

[Joanna]

I don't think the voice was a great.

[Mallory]

The voice was.

[Joanna]

It doesn't have to match, but it, you know, like, because the mall voice isn't an exact imitation, you know, like, we've seen other people take on, you know, the animated Obi Wan Kenobi. Like, there's, like, great people who have taken over a previously existed live action performance. This did not hit for me the way that Bettany did in Solo.

[Mallory]

What if the ship they had flown in on for their very subtle extraction attempt had been the first light pleasure yacht? Would that have changed your opinion?

[Joanna]

Yes.

[Mallory]

Okay, there's our note.

[Joanna]

That's my note.

[Mallory]

There's our note. All right, so as usual, you remain uninterested in Crimson dawn and anything that connects to the canon of a Star wars story. Sad but true. Yeah.

[Joanna]

It's just me against the world.

[Mallory]

You against the world. I'm the only one. Everyone else agrees. Yeah, everyone else agrees. Makesolo2 happen. We are getting season two of Maul. What else? What else do you want to see in season two of Shadowlord again?

[Joanna]

I would just love. Well, I would love more, like, I would be happy to see Palpy if we got some, like, good Palpatine Mall, like, you know, abandoned shit. That would be great. Yeah. I don't know, maybe run into, like, one of the other million Jedi out there on the run and just sort of like to get some. Hey, what are you doing, Devon? Moments from other Jedi might be interesting.

[Mallory]

That feels important, given how much of Maul's initial pitch. Even though the initial pitch is not really what worked, you do have to wonder about the incepting and the seed planting and the slow march across the season.

[Joanna]

Somebody walks through your dreams, it's, you know, Maul.

[Mallory]

What if that's the name of season two we had?

[Joanna]

Shadow Lord Dreamwalker.

[Mallory]

Dreamwalker.

[Joanna]

Yeah. It'd be great.

[Mallory]

Who says no?

[Sam Witwer]

Not us.

[Mallory]

Not us. I can't wait for season two. I thought season season one was so fun. I'm glad we're getting this time with Mal. Excited to see Devin fall to the dark side. I hope that Lawson is alive and well, even though he's peppered with blaster holes. Shout out, Icarus. By the way, speaking of peppered with blaster holes, I know we already mourned him for, like, two seconds, but let's just say he basically took the Boromir arrow level of blaster fire, but then still was like, I am going to gather in my arms every Stormtrooper I can hold and take them with me into this acid vat.

[Joanna]

It was pretty great.

[Mallory]

That was sick.

[Joanna]

Yeah, it was pretty great.

[Mallory]

I don't have that in me in my final moments. Yeah, no, I don't. I want to be in a comfortable bed, you know, I want the Tyrion Lannister with a couple anatomical tweaks to his very specific scenario that he sketched out. All right, it's time for our wonderful conversation with Sam Witwer, Maul himself. All right. It is the thrill of our lives to be here with Sam Witwer. We have been kind of trying to manifest this on the pod for a very long time, this conversation. And now here you are at the end of The Shadowlord Season 1 Run to Talk about everything. Everything that has ever happened in Star Wars Animation, in your life, in Mal's life. We'll see where it goes. We have, obviously, questions about the finale.

[Sam Witwer]

Do you see the fear in my eyes?

[Mallory]

No.

[Joanna]

It's the first time.

[Mallory]

Anticipation and joy.

[Joanna]

You told us this is the first time you're gonna say certain words into a microphone.

[Sam Witwer]

In two years? Yeah, in two years.

[Mallory]

Okay, well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get to those secret words pretty soon. We obviously have questions about the finale and where things went across the season. But let's, like, let's start with a little bit more of a big picture. Why not stretch here about your relationship to this character? Because you've been playing Maul for more than a decade, which is just an amazing stretch of time to be able to inhabit a character and embody a character. Does it even feel like a job to you at this point, or is it just like a second skin?

[Sam Witwer]

Well, I do know him fairly well. It's a situation. There have been other jobs where I've been trying to figure out a character and there'd be some passage of dialogue or something, and I wouldn't know what to do with it. Cause I didn't know the character yet. And just as an experiment, I'm like, well, what would Maul make of this? No matter what the character. Character is, I would say the passage is Maul. And he had a lot of opinions about this passage in terms of what certain words meant and how he felt about what he was saying. And so, yeah, I've come to realize that we've done enough work to where he is there. He will manifest if I ask him to show up. Yeah. But what's interesting is that with Shadow Lord, this is, in fact, a new version of the character. I mean, every time we came back to him, you gotta do something new. Otherwise, don't bring the character back. What would be the point? We already did those things. So, you know, there's early Clone Wars. There's Spider Mall, which is his own thing.

[Joanna]

Our favorite. Yeah, we love Spider Mall.

[Sam Witwer]

There's the old sad Rebels Mall.

[Mallory]

That's right.

[Sam Witwer]

And then this is a different thing. This is the Shadowlord.

[Joanna]

So he's changed, obviously. But in terms of your relation to, like, what has been the most significant change in your understanding of him as a character from when you first encountered him taking over the role from other folks who worked on it until now, what has changed in your understanding of Maul?

[Sam Witwer]

Well, as he has evolved, one of the first Things that we established was his hurt and vulnerability. The spider Maul thing really was an opportunity to make the statement that the dark side isn't a fun place to live.

[Mallory]

Yes.

[Sam Witwer]

And that there was something human in there that was screaming and expressing quite a bit of discomfort. What's fun about him now, as he's evolved, is that he's at war with himself, which is, in fact, the dark side. The dark side. These characters are at war with himself. Unless you're. Perhaps Palpatine is fine with where he's at. Very possibly.

[Mallory]

Papi loves it.

[Joanna]

Sleeps well at night.

[Mallory]

Loves it.

[Sam Witwer]

But even then, I mean, I'd heard, you know, it's out there, that George at some point was going to give Palpatine a love interest and stuff like that.

[Mallory]

So George always lakes on the Boo

[Sam Witwer]

Sheev, you know, why would he not? That's where he's from, Right. That's where he comes from. That's where he vacations. But with Maul, ultimately, he's trying to do things. He's trying to accomplish things. He's trying to, in his own way, effect a positive change. But between the good intentions and the actions is a giant gulf. And the intentions are only as good as the actions, really. At the end of the day, are you as a human being, are you doing the right thing, or are you doing something that hurts someone? Right. And for Maul, unfortunately, the gulf between intention and action is the difference between good and evil. So that's really where the character lives. You need to watch these characters making choices. That's what makes them teachable in a mythological sense. You need to watch them make the right choice or the wrong choice. And so that's the challenge. That's my job, is to really try to make those choices interesting. And that's what we talk about, me and Brad and Matt and Athena over and over and over and over again.

[Mallory]

We were curious to ask you about that kind of sense of authorship that you have over the character. Because, you know, you've. You mentioned George, you mentioned all these other creators who are helping to shape this world in so many vibrant ways. And like, you know, you've been working with Dave Filoni on the Maul front since day one. And obviously, like, his role at Lucasfilm has changed considerably, but his interest in Maul hasn't. That's a constant.

[Joanna]

Right.

[Mallory]

Like, the desire to keep returning to Maul's story. And so how did that manifest inside of Shadowlord? But also, just, like, what does it do for you with your relationship to this character? That you feel like you are actively helping to craft the canon as you portray him.

[Sam Witwer]

I think there comes a time where, if the actor's been around long enough and it's been a successful enough character, that I suppose there's some understanding that you may want to get that person in early if you're working with that character. Because me and Dave, I mean, well, Dave brought me in early. With Clone wars, it wasn't just, hey, I want you to do Maul, and then I show up and record lines. That was not the process. The process was we were thinking about that character months before we recorded a single line. And we'd have these recurring discussions that would last one to two hours on the phone. We were obsessive about it, talking about the character, who he was, what drives him, what we were going to learn about him. And he also furnished me with as many scripts as they had, which I work better with more information. Always, always, always. And Dave set me up to succeed in that way. And, you know, it was either because Dave really, really cared about the character or he knew that I was a really, really green voice actor. It was one or the other or both that he gave me the extra help. But he furnished me with a lot of his time. And I remember. I remember recording some of the first mall. Because we. We're always working with the other actors, if we can. We're always in ensemble, if we can pull that off. But I was shooting a series in Montreal at the time, so we had to get a studio and I had to record some stuff separately. And so I remember some of the first records of Mal were from Montreal. Others were, like, with Clancy in la, if I could fly back, I would. But I remember I had great pride because I was so proud. I was so very proud because Clone wars at the time was this little thing that we didn't know if anyone was really watching. It had certainly been lambasted by certain critics and stuff like that. But we thought it was great. We thought it was cool. And I was a fan of the show before I was brought in to play the Son of Mortis. So we were recording Maul, and I was so proud because at some point during a break, the engineers at the studio in Montreal said, said, who's this guy that's directing you? My guy's Dave Filoni. He's like, tell us about Dave Filoni. I'm like, oh, well, he's kind of George's. I told him all about Dave. And they're like, I'm like, why Are you asking? And they're like, because this is among the best direction and most concise. Most. We know exactly what we're going for. Direction we've ever heard. And we've been doing this forever. We've been doing features, voiceover, live action, everything. We wanna know more about this guy. These two guys that ran the studio, they were fascinated by just hearing Dave work with me. And I was so proud. I was like, yeah, I think we're doing something cool. I think this is cool. I like this. And it's nice to hear from people who have. No, no. They weren't getting paid to say that. They just thought what they were hearing was really interesting to them. And they're like, so you're. No, wait, you're Darth Maul, but he's dead. You know, so it was, you know, it was moments like that that I was like, you know, I think we're doing good work. I hope we're doing good work. I think we are.

[Mallory]

So love that we got a mortis mention already.

[Joanna]

I know.

[Mallory]

It's a thrill for us. We're huge mortise heads. Oh, yeah, we are. Oh, yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

Well, that was where I became a voice actor. That particular job I'd done. I guess the Palpatine character in the Force Unleashed was kind of a voice job, but it was also. We shot it. We shot it on camera. So it was something I was familiar with when it came to mortis. I really needed Dave's help to convert a live action actor into a voice actor. And he was. There's a whole story behind that too, where he helped me create that character.

[Joanna]

Do you want to tell that story?

[Sam Witwer]

Sure, yeah. Yeah. It's kind of epic. And it leads directly to Darth Maul. Basically, what happened was this. In live action, sometimes to. What they need is just. They need an organism to put on camera that's going to react in a very particular, honest way. And sometimes that can be very compelling. So there have been times where I showed up for a live action gig and I had some ideas, but I sort of trusted, you know, I know how to do this. Something special is going to happen. Let's. Let's do that. So I maybe had a little too much faith in that and I show up for the mortise job and I didn't have as strong ideas as I should have, and I started floundering. As far as I'm concerned, I started not. It was just a little too generic. It was just, you know. And, yeah, I was really having trouble. And I'm Surrounded by Ashley and James and Matt. Dee was in it for a little bit, and they're in their season three mode. So we were watching season two, but they're working on season three now. And I'm hearing them so dialed in to their characters. I'm not. And I'm told in no uncertain terms that I am meant to play the dark side of the Force.

[Joanna]

Right.

[Sam Witwer]

That's a theme. That's not a character. That's a theme. How do you play a theme?

[Mallory]

Right. Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

So I'm not doing great. And it was sort of generic. And that sort of magic that I was hoping would just arrive is not arriving, and I know it. And I raise my hand at some point, and, you know, Dave is that guy that I've seen in some interviews and stuff like that. Right. I said, hey, Dave, is it? Are we concerned that the Son of Mortis is just kind of sounding a little bit like a generic version of Starkiller? Is what I said. And Dave knew exactly what was happening with me. He's like, oh, this guy's treading water. He's having trouble. So I watched him manufacture a response that was designed to give me confidence, which is another way of saying a lie. He said this. He said, well, you have to understand Sam. Without missing a beat by the way he goes. You have to understand that the character of Starkiller had a connection to the dark side of the Force, and your character is the dark side of the Force. So it's okay if they sound similar. It's all right. It's all right, man. We built a bridge, which did help my confidence being like, dude, it's cool. Yeah, but that's not what got me.

[Mallory]

Me.

[Sam Witwer]

Like, my. There was. There were neurons in my brain. When he said that, that started going absolutely nuts. And I couldn't understand why, like, was getting, like. I'm getting goosebumps even thinking about it. I'm like, he's just hit on something. And I don't have time to realize what this is. But thank God the character doesn't have that much dialogue right now, because in the next two episodes, he just talks the whole way through this one. He only had a few lines, right? So I. I'm driving home from that. That session, and the neurons are now taking over my brain. They're spreading to other neurons. You know, connection to the dark side of the Force. So he can sound like Starkiller because of the connection to the. Well, wait a second. That only makes sense if the Son of Mortis sounds like every character In Star wars that had a connection to the dark side of the Force.

[Mallory]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

That's holy. And I'm getting. Again, I'm getting excited even thinking about this. So then I went home, and I'm like, I have something to work on now. So I grabbed those scripts and I was like, okay, wait. In the top of this line, that could be a Vader moment, and then it could slip into a Palpatine moment, and then I can go dooku. A little bit of Maul here, But it will always be with my voice. But the cadence will shift, and maybe the tone will shift slightly. I'll never dip fully into the character, but I'll tip it toward these different characters. And when I came back and we started performing it, Dave. I started doing that, and Dave just smiled and he just goes. And he literally just. Right away, he picked. He knew exactly what I was doing. He goes, I see what you're doing. And I'm like. And I got really self conscious. I'm like, oh, should I stop doing that? Should I not? He's like, no, no, no, no, no. You do it more. That's the character. That's who this is. That's how we portray the dark side of the Force.

[Mallory]

Awesome.

[Sam Witwer]

And so at that point, we were going for it, like, Dave's like, hey, can you throw a little this and that? Yeah, let's do that. Remember that moment in the Empire Strikes Back? Then Attack of the Clones? And we just started throwing things in. And, yes, there were moments that were meant to feel like Darth Maul. So later, when we were doing pickups, Dave's like, you know, he goes, you know, I know you have a lot of friends at Lucasfilm. I'm like, I do. From Force Unleashed. He's like, you've probably heard we're going to bring Maul back. And I'm like, yeah, I have. He's like, what do you think about that?

[Mallory]

I'm like, oh, wow.

[Sam Witwer]

That's a tall order, man. That's a. Ooh. You could really. Oh, you could get that wrong. And he's just nodding and smiling, and he goes, cool. Well, dude, thanks for coming in. I think we might have something for you, you know, down the road. I'm like, cool. Like a bounty hunter. I'd love to play a bounty hunter. And he just kind of gives me this look, like, yeah, no, just, like, totally didn't understand what he was talking to me about. No clue. And then he called me up and he said, I need Darth Maul. Can you do it. He called me up some months later, and when he said it, can you do it? He wasn't saying. I could hear in his voice. He wasn't saying like, hey, are you available? Are you interested in doing Darth Maul? He was saying, am I making a mistake by going to you for this? Please be honest with me. Can you do it? And because when I was lacking of confidence, he gave me a very reassuring lie that created my character and turned me into a voice actor. I must have felt like, I can hear that he has a little lack of confidence. So let me lie right back. Yes, I can do that. Surely, surely I could do it right now, but I don't feel like it, you know, so, you know, and again, I'm making fun. We weren't lying to each other as we were trying to get on the same page and help each other, which is the whole key to a collaboration. You're trying to hear what the other person's priorities are. And you go, okay, all right, I can incorporate that. I can figure out a way to do that while threading the needle of the things that I think I need to build.

[Joanna]

And he says, I have two words for you. Spider legs. And you're like, I'm in.

[Mallory]

I'm in. I'm in.

[Sam Witwer]

Baby spider legs. Spider Mall. We talked about Spider Mall so very much. When he told me about that, it was just this wonderful mythological. The dark side gone wrong. These legs constructed of garbage, held together by the dark side of the force. It was pretty intense.

[Joanna]

What you've described here sounds like an incredible mind meldy sort of collaboration. But I'm curious, at this point, so far into playing Maul, do you have any, you know, violating all rules of improv? No, but rules about Maul, like, Maul would not do that. When that comes to you, I'm sure I do.

[Sam Witwer]

I've been the scourge of Matt and Brad. Poor Matt. Matt and poor Brad. On the show, I can't think of any hard and fast rules, but, yeah, you better believe there was one. Yeah. Recently, in a recent session, they asked me to say something and I said, I don't quite know how he would say that. And because Matt and Brad are so talented, they're like, well, what about this? And they come up with an alternative. And I was like, oh, that's fantastic. That's great. So, yes, there's a certain flavor and it feels right or it feels wrong. So that's. And Brad encourages me to be stubborn. Brad is terrific. I mean, you've Seen the show?

[Joanna]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

Brad's kind of, you know, it's excellent. It's a little bit like a film school Lucasfilm. It really is. And it started with George and branched out through Dave. And we all had the opportunity on the Clone wars to work under George, for George to tell his stories and learn what his storytelling priorities are. Now, no one knows that better than Dave. There is truly no one who understands Star wars better than Dave. But what's fun is because we were there, we all feel like we're part of a group of people. Mattie was there as well. Matt Miknovitz, and Athena's been there always. And we all. We kind of know when it feels right, and we know when it feels wrong. And we get to have discussions about the things that we've learned over the past more than a decade or two decades or whatever it's been.

[Mallory]

Well, one of the interesting things, you know, about the setting and the time frame for the show is that it is between a lot of those prior experiences, right? So, like, this is such a fascinating time in mall canonical timeline because we know so much about what came before, right? We've got Duel of the Fates. We've got the Trash Heap Planet Spider Leg Stretch. We've got, you know, Morning Savage Opress and Mother Talzin. We have the Mandalore take over. We have Shadow Collective, right? We have being with Ahsoka as order 66 is unfolding everything, right? But then we also have, in the distance, Ezra, Malachor, twin sons, right? So given that there's this rich stretch to mine and explore more fully in between, what were you either heading into season one or now at the end of season one, moving forward into subsequent seasons, like, most excited to get to navigate. And mine, in this stretch of the Maul canon, like, was there a question that you were most hoping to answer either for yourself or for fans?

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, there was.

[Mallory]

What was it? What was it?

[Joanna]

Tell us.

[Sam Witwer]

Well, for me, immediately, when I heard that we were doing this show, the question that leapt to my mind is, why is it that he showed Ezra respect at times, even though he was trying to manipulate him? I'm not saying he wasn't. But then when Ezra, eventually he says, hey, we could be brothers. Ezra goes, no, I'm never gonna join you. And Maul is clearly hurt, and then ends up stopping whatever that instinct was about to become. And then he laughs and shakes his head and walks off and says, ezra Bridger, and leaves him alone. Now, whether Maul was planning to get back to him later or not is open for debate, but you can't imagine Palpatine doing something like that. The moment someone said, no, this is never happening, you're dead.

[Joanna]

Right.

[Sam Witwer]

Whereas Maul's like, man, I. You know, I.

[Joanna]

What a character.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, you. Wow. Look what you just did. You just stood up to me. That's impressive. Impressive. And he works alone in Rebels, and we've seen that Maul can take over a planet in an afternoon if he wants to. Right?

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

Why does he not do that? Why does he let Ezra go, all these different things? And, yes, of course, He's got other things he's doing, but I always got the feeling that Maul was at the end of his rope and had no place to go in Rebels. So then. So immediately I'm like, well, what happens that made him like that? Something has changed him drastically from Clone wars to Rebels. Hugely. And it can only be Devon Azara. So that's the thought.

[Joanna]

Given what we've seen here in season one, what would you say so far that you can say about their connection that would lead him there?

[Sam Witwer]

Well, you know, it's interesting. In episode three, he's calling out that he's got her number, he understands her. He's like, you were training to achieve something that few could only to be denied. You crave that unfulfilled destiny. And it's all landing on her, all of it. However, you know, him being able to manipulate her like that, that kind of goes both ways. Because he's talking about himself. It's one of the interesting things that Matt McNally and his writers did in this season. First of all, one of the most brilliant things is the fact that. And I've told him, I love this. The fact that Maul trains an apprentice by just going, hi, how's it going, Darth Maul, I'm training you now. And then he just. Every time you bump into him, whether

[Mallory]

you like it or not.

[Sam Witwer]

Exactly. Congratulations. Whether you like it or not, you're being trained. Every time he encounters her, there's a new lesson, and it's a specific lesson. Okay, now we're going to the next lesson. You passed that test. And so by the end of the season, you're like, yeah, he's been training her this whole time, and she's been absorbing those rules and that training those thoughts. So I always thought that that was absolutely fascinating. But the thing that Maul didn't anticipate is that he recognizes through this, that it's like. Like, Palpatine was awful to me, and he abandoned me. Yeah, well, if I hate that guy so much, I'm kind of a hypocrite. If I do the same thing, that means actually I have no leg to stand on. Pardon the pun. He has no legs, but he would say, yeah, I have no leg to stand on when it comes to his treatment of me. If I do the same thing, I'm the same guy, so I deserve that treatment. But if I'm better than him morally, then I can righteously be indignant at Palpatine, righteously be indignant at the Empire, and I will treat her better than I was treated. But the problem is, he was raised by Palpatine, so is he equipped to do. Does he even know what that looks like?

[Joanna]

That's a conflict inside of the human heart.

[Mallory]

It's the only thing worth writing about. As we like to say on our Game of Thrones pods, we wanted to ask you about exactly this. We're in full blown finale spoilers territory now.

[Sam Witwer]

Okay, here we go.

[Mallory]

And we've got a couple other things to cover on that front as well. But exactly what you just said was something we wanted to talk to you about more. Because part of, you know, we love seeing that conflict in Maul. Right. It's part of what makes him just such a delicious and compelling character. Those contradictions. So much of his recruitment of Devon across the season was like, let's break through those reductive binaries. It's not what you think it is.

[Joanna]

It's not. We're not so different.

[Mallory]

You're not. I'm not who you think I am. But at the end of the day, we're about to say the words Darth Vader. Make sure you have watched.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah.

[Mallory]

Spoiler alerts the finale before you listen to the rest of this. When it comes down to it, he's made his pitch tap into the rage. Daki has said teamwork.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, not going to happen. Daki is like, we are not betraying those principles.

[Joanna]

Exactly.

[Mallory]

They have aligned. They have fought together. It is like, mesmerizing in so many respects.

[Sam Witwer]

And then at the same time, they're not quite getting along. You can tell that Maul's getting frustrated by this guy going like, you're not doing the thing. And I happen to know a little bit about this fight. I know more than anyone about this fight. He's the expert on what's happening in this fight. And the people that he's trying to survive with are like, you are really not listening.

[Mallory]

And we want to ask in a minute about what he's Sensing in Vader, too, because obviously, that is a very rich text as well.

[Sam Witwer]

But, like, be open to debate as to how much Maul knows. I have very specific thoughts. Well, obviously, we need to know what he knows, and then the audience, they own it after that.

[Joanna]

Can we just.

[Mallory]

Let's lean into that. Yeah, tell us. Let's. I mean, Maul finally fights Darth Vader. We get to watch them duel, Right?

[Sam Witwer]

It's debatable that Maul has sussed out by the end of the fight exactly what he's up against. If this is just an inquisitor, which Maul says you're no inquisitor, but let's say it was. Maul would still be like, hey, dude, these folks can know who trained you based on how you're fighting.

[Mallory]

Yes.

[Sam Witwer]

So you gotta change it up. It's not gonna work. Your Jedi playbook is well read by these folks. They know what you're doing. So your only chance to survive is if you listen to what I'm saying. What do we got to do? You got to go nuts. Lose all those principles. Absolutely. Tap into your rage. Give it all up so that you become unpredictable. And unfortunately, that would be damaging to the Jedi psyche. You know, to play dirty, you know, to use the tools of the enemy. But Maul already does that, so he's like, well, I'm the only one fighting this fight. You maniacs. What's wrong with you people? So. So he is truly trying to get through that, but he does not feel like his teammates are. And so, of course, if he knows what must be done for the greater good. Look, he's trying to get people out alive. He's also trying to topple an empire that is hurting trillions of beings.

[Joanna]

It's a lot on the to do list.

[Mallory]

It's a hefty list.

[Sam Witwer]

And he's looking at the pieces that are on the table, and he goes, okay, well, I'm gonna to have to. I'm gonna have to move this along. And so he moves a few pieces into certain places.

[Mallory]

Yes. He.

[Joanna]

That's a way to put it.

[Mallory]

It's a very generous way of saying, he abandons Daki, who is then murdered by Darth Vader, and Devon sees the outcome, but not Maul's choice.

[Sam Witwer]

And what does that do to Devon? Now she's finally getting it. Now she's fighting. Now she can survive.

[Mallory]

Takes his saber in her hand, fires up that red blade.

[Sam Witwer]

And the trick is that the audience gets to decide in terms of that equation of Maul's decision Is it simply, I want an apprentice and I'm gonna get her? Right, yeah, maybe that's a little in there, but what else is in there? This guy isn't listening. He's gonna get us all killed. Well, that's also in there. Also, if I don't act fast, Devon's gonna die. I can hear that she's struggling. I can feel in the Force that she's struggling. She's not ready for this. Fight. Fight. If I hesitate much longer, she may not survive. And what did I promise in the previous episodes? That I would not allow Palpatine to do to another young person what he did to me. So I have a responsibility to do something. So Maul has this good intent, but like I said, there's a gulf between the intent and the action.

[Mallory]

Yeah. How aware of he is, Is he of that hypocrisy?

[Sam Witwer]

Well, that's the thing.

[Mallory]

He was like, he's manipulating her to your point, just like Palpatine manipulated him.

[Sam Witwer]

He does, exactly. Because you trained Maul, who raised Maul. He was raised by Palpatine. These are the tools he has at his disposal to carry out whatever his goals are, whatever his heart is. So you understand this is not someone for Maul. Him and Palpatine are so different. There are lines Maul would never cross that Palpatine would just blow right past. But from the outside, I don't know that other characters would look at Maul and Palpatine and see that world of difference. They'd say, you guys look a lot similar. You guys are the same guy. You know, Maul doesn't see it that way. Maul's like, no, no. What I'm doing is totally different. And Daki wasn't getting with the program. So what do Jedi do? They sacrifice. Okay, do it.

[Mallory]

You're up. Yeah.

[Joanna]

Wow, Impressive defense attorney work from Sam Witwerling case.

[Sam Witwer]

The interesting thing about evil in real life or in drama is that evil will always use its intellect to do the mental gymnastics to justify whatever is going on. And again, the whole key with Maul and what keeps him as an interesting character because, look, if he wasn't making choices and constantly motivated by all the same things that we're motivated by, then he becomes Skeletor. Skeletor, which is great for the cartoon that I grew up on. It's great for he man, but would not be good for Star Wars. That's not what we're doing, Maul. There really is some good intention in there. He meant what he said when he said, I won't let him do this to anyone else. And he feels that he is following through on that directive. But if you zoom out, the audience may disagree with him and go, oh, I see what you think you're doing, pal. But like that. And for Maul, he goes, oh, I'm sorry, did you want us all to die? We're living in a very tough world. This galaxy is constantly trying to kill you. Especially with the Empire there. There's no choice. I made the only rational choice necessary. Oh, and I'm sorry that this guy went down. He wouldn't get with the program.

[Joanna]

Trolley problem, right?

[Mallory]

Always.

[Sam Witwer]

And so again. And that's the other thing about the dark side. The dark side constantly points the finger outward. It's everyone else's fault, you know, so Maul is being more reflective in this series than we've ever seen him to be. But I don't know that. I mean, you know, I play the character, so I'm like him, his. I'm. I'm meant to be his advocate. You know, I'm Nick Nolting in Cape Fear, but. But I do eventually have to go, you know, I don't know if I agree with this guy, you know, because ultimately this is a very damaged character. And again. Oh, and what I was going to say about the training of Devon throughout the season, one of the brilliant things that Matt Miknovitz and the writers did was they not only had the. That method by which Maul trained Devin, but you're learning about Maul based on what he says about Devon. You're learning. And we're treating this show like we're introducing Maul to a new audience because you have to, you know, you have to invite people into our cool Star Wars.

[Joanna]

I can't imagine this is the first entree for someone into Star Wars.

[Sam Witwer]

I'm hearing from people who it is.

[Joanna]

That's exactly.

[Sam Witwer]

And it works for them, which is, like, good. We want it to. You know, of course, by the time you get to 108, you get deeper into his mythology. But I think it's a really compelling thing that you can sense that Maul says these things to Devon because they're true of him. And that's the only thing Devin recognizes, that, like, spirit in them. And the tragedy of Maul is that it needn't have gone in this direction. But he never had the support. He never had people who provided him alternatives in the same way that Obi Wan Kenobi provided Luke a world of alternatives. Kenobi, yeah, that guy, you know, so she couldn't resist.

[Joanna]

I wanted to ask you not to just dwell too long on spider legs, but something that I think is interesting in this finale episode is, you know, Maul's fighting style is so lithe, so limber. But then several times this season, we have he bumps up against the physical limitations of his mechanical parts, another mirror reflection of Vader, et cetera. But I'm just curious what's interesting to you about really exploring that a couple times this season, the physical limitations of this version of Maul?

[Sam Witwer]

Well, the discussions were the fact that, you know, I've said a few times in interviews that there were certain ideas that I would throw at Dave that I thought would be interesting to explore with Maul. And Dave would very quickly say, well, cool idea, but this isn't Maul's show. You can't get into those nitty gritty details. I never dreamed that Dave was thinking there could be a mall show. So I thought it was just these ideas were gonna go nowhere. But one of the things that I have always been interested in exploring was he's a cyborg, and his legs were issued to him, the ones he has now, by a guy who didn't expect him to be alive for more than a year. He doesn't have Vader hardware. Whether the hardware that Vader employs is painful for him to use or not, you have to believe that it's pretty good. It's probably pretty expensive and top shelf stuff that Vader's using. Maul's. Isn't that things like the way that Maul and Vader fight, you have to understand that Maul's striking power, for example. Let's just go one. There's so many different things we've talked about, but one of the things we talked about is his striking power is not. Not what it used to be. Why? Well, because in order to coil like a snake and strike, that requires the kinetic chain from the ground all the way through your legs, through your core, this and that, through your, you know, shoulders, arms, into the striking surface of the blade.

[Mallory]

Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

How does he do that when this is all interrupted?

[Joanna]

Right.

[Sam Witwer]

That's not the same thing. Right. Vader's stuff is higher grade. You can imagine General Grievous spend as much money as he possibly could. He's a look smacks her. Yeah, Grievous is looking. But so Maul is operating on constantly compensating. You know, one of the thoughts I had was when he's fighting Ahsoka, like how difficult that must be to balance on those beams with these legs, one of our favorite. They're not really made for that, you know? And so, you know, so for that reason, Vader's superior striking ability and the fact that he's so strong and has figured out how to use those limbs to enhance the strength rather than detract the strength, because Maul's strength comes from the agility, Vader's has brute force. And you imagine that his hardware is also designed for brute force. Maul can't compete with that. When their blades meet, he's not ready for that. He doesn't have that striking power anymore. There's also the matter of Vader sees things before they happen. We know that. And so Vader does not have to move as fast for his blade to be exactly where it needs to be at the right time. He's just like, yep, and it's there, and it's there. Now I go here, now there. Force push. You do this. You know, he's a machine. He's also totally prepared for the fight. You know, he's already done all of the reconnaissance and intel that he could possibly need to know exactly how to take this guy apart. You know, he has Inquisitors reporting back. You can imagine. They've recorded all of those fights. Vader's like, okay, I get it.

[Mallory]

Right, right, right.

[Sam Witwer]

I know.

[Joanna]

What discussion tape.

[Mallory]

He's always walking it back.

[Sam Witwer]

What is one one of the first things Vader does? Boom. Right to the legs, right?

[Mallory]

Yeah. Gives him a little hip flexor injury.

[Sam Witwer]

He knows exactly what he's doing, and. And he's trying, you know? Yeah. He. So it's not, in any stretch of the imagination, a fair fight.

[Mallory]

Right.

[Sam Witwer]

But it is a rich fight and full of character and interest, I think.

[Mallory]

Well, obviously, we have to linger on this for another moment because, you know, we just can't really overstate what a big deal it is that we got to watch Abdullah. This is like the good shit here.

[Sam Witwer]

You're among the first people in the world to see this, and this is the first time I can ever speak about it in two years.

[Mallory]

I mean, it's incredible. What a dream.

[Sam Witwer]

Very off balance and terrified right now.

[Joanna]

You're so safe.

[Mallory]

This is a safe space.

[Sam Witwer]

I'm not sure that I am. I feel like there's, you know, Lucasfilm, snipers up in the red dot. Oh, God. Yeah.

[Mallory]

Safe space here in the ruins on Janiks, you know, plenty of places to hide. You've alluded to a couple things that we wanted to ask you about this like, what is Maul aware of and kind of navigating and sensing in real time? Vader's preparation and heightened awareness in a number of respects, which gives him the edge. Of course. We as viewers are bringing so much to this, so much of the shared history as well. Like, you know, we're seeing them, two of the most iconic characters in one of the most iconic franchises in the history of the world. So right away, it's like, big deal, right? They've dueled in Legends, but not in the canon. They're both on Malachor and Twilight of the Apprentice, but they're not fighting. Right.

[Sam Witwer]

Maul's like, I'm not going anywhere near that.

[Mallory]

Exactly. Yeah. He's like, kanan, sure.

[Joanna]

Vader, he's like, been there. No, thank you.

[Mallory]

No. He talks to Ahsoka at the end of Clone wars about Anakin, about Sidious plans. But, like, this actual showdown is a huge deal. The action is electric. We have all of that. But then we're thinking shared master Sidious Kenobi. Right. Who only becomes Anakin's master because Maul kills Qui Gon Kenobi, who wounded them both. Exactly. So we can, in real time, as the peril and the action are unfolding, see that? There's an awareness that is building in Maul. He is sensing something.

[Sam Witwer]

That's right. And he's trying to make sense of it. And he's to. Going, going, please let me be wrong.

[Joanna]

Right.

[Mallory]

So what is it? What is he thinking? What is he feeling? How sure is he?

[Sam Witwer]

Dave told me all about the backstory of the Siege of Mandalore, which was that Maul was having these recurring nightmare visions about a Central Force user that was going to be the instrument to the end of the world, and that Maul was terrified and really, really disturbed by what he was seeing in his visions night after night.

[Mallory]

Night.

[Sam Witwer]

And he was so terrified that this is the first time he ever dared really try to turn on his master. It's the first time that he even imagined that he would tell people his master's name, which would have been great information for the Jedi to have.

[Mallory]

I mean, Yoda just meditating.

[Sam Witwer]

I wonder who Darth Sidious is. Yeah. And they're like, well, you know, Maul should have just gotten a paid phone. He's like, it's Palpatine hung up.

[Joanna]

That's it.

[Sam Witwer]

But he never does that, because there's a. There are strands of loyalty, and you imagine strands of fear that keep those characters linked, but he's willing to sever those at the very end. To reach out for Ahsoka. Tano makes an offer by telling the absolute truth about the situation, but he botches the pitch because he's like, well, that's our guy.

[Mallory]

That's our Maul.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, well, and this is what leads us to Shadowlord, because he doesn't botch the pitch. And Shadowlord, he's like, oh, I've got to remember my audience when I'm talking. And, you know, you don't hear him talking about revenge throughout the series. He doesn't do that. He goes, yeah, let's. You know, you Jedi, you're so amazing. You should be. They should be ruling. You should be leading. You should be, you know, like, he's figuring out ways to sell these ideas to Jedi, because with Ahsoka, he didn't do that. He told the absolute truth. He thought that was gonna do it.

[Joanna]

Telling you, it was a very convincing pitch, I thought.

[Sam Witwer]

Well, and the problem is, he goes, look, you were cast out of the Jedi Order. I was cast out of the Sith. I hate my master. I'd like to kill him. You hate your master. Let's go kill him. This is great, right? She's like, he's my best friend.

[Mallory]

He's like, damn. Slight miscalculation, of course.

[Joanna]

Jedi guy.

[Sam Witwer]

Damn Jedi.

[Mallory]

Those pesky attachments.

[Joanna]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sam Witwer]

Jedi, right? Breaking their own rules with the attachment thing, by the way. But, you know, so for Maul, the other interesting thing about in this series is that Maul is now seeing the Empire. You know, he says to Devin, now you've seen the face of your true enemy. He's saying that because he went through that. This is a guy who was raised to hate the Jedi Knights, but he never questioned it and never asked, well, where's Sidious coming from on this? And he was just took it as true truth. They need to be destroyed. And he was doing his best. He killed a lot of Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. More than we know. And then when he gets to Shadowlord and he meets the Inquisitors, he goes, this is the alternative, right? And this Empire is awful. This is not how I see it.

[Mallory]

Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

Is this what Palpatine had in mind? This isn't what I thought it was going to be. And the Inquisitors. One of the interesting things about Star wars is that lightsaber fights in particular, are about principle versus principle, two opposing viewpoints. And the lightsabers are the way that they work that out. Right? So if you fight Obi Wan Kenobi, you have Maul's principles versus Obi Wan. Yes, him. If a Jedi Knight or a Sith goes up against a bunch of battle droids, well, guess what. They're not coming up against principles. This is.

[Mallory]

Waited till we were.

[Sam Witwer]

Thank you very much, ladies. I think. I think we're done.

[Joanna]

I told her she should be wearing it the whole time.

[Mallory]

We had a guest for the rest of the pod.

[Sam Witwer]

I'm taking the apples with me. I'm sorry.

[Joanna]

Please, no.

[Sam Witwer]

So, you know, why do Jedi cut through battle droids like they're nothing? Because there's no principle there. There's nothing. There's no value.

[Mallory]

Roger, roger.

[Sam Witwer]

That's their value. Roger. Roger. Is their moral value. That's the value.

[Joanna]

This is what I call Mallory. Star Wars Tourette's, where she just can't.

[Mallory]

I can't help it. Just can't help it.

[Sam Witwer]

So when it comes to the Inquisitors, the terrifying thing about them, to Maul, the thing that's so objectionable is he's like, this is the same empty void that you'd get from a droid. But they're winning. There's no principle. There's no soul there. There's nothing. There's nothing guiding these. These folks. They're completely enthralled to the Emperor, but they're winning. What's going on here? How dark is this Empire? And so for that reason, you know, when Maul talks about the Jedi Knights early in the season, he is also telling the truth, like, Jedi. You know what? I've come to realize something. You guys were amazing, but you were asleep at the wheel.

[Joanna]

Right?

[Sam Witwer]

Right. But you guys could have done so much if you'd only just Woke up.

[Joanna]

Jedi 2.0. Let's go.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, right. And he doesn't really understand the intricacies there, but that's his perspective. I mean, the way even the show looks, the crafting of the lighting, and how dangerous everything looks. Well, we're getting a peek at the Star wars universe through Maul's perspective. In Maul's world, you can't stop to reflect because someone's going to kill you. You can't stop to reach a helping hand to a friend who's in need because that leaves you open to attack. You can't do that. It's not an option. So it'll be interesting to see how Maul deals with going forward. Devon, who is, you could imagine, would be quite a vulnerability, you know, Interesting.

[Joanna]

What a tease. Is there. We don't have much time left. Is there anything else you Mentioned that it's been two years. You've been sitting on some information about the finale. We did our best to ask some Vader questions, but is there anything else you. Any secrets you've been keeping that you're excited to say into a microphone in this very safe space?

[Sam Witwer]

You know, I think it's funny enough. I think. I think it's all kind of in the show. I mean, I thought Brad did an extraordinary job of getting all of these ideas out, either through visuals or dialogue or character action or a look or a passage or a lightsaber swipe. I feel like there's a lot of ideas crammed into the show. I mean, you guys bring up the legs. It's like it's not just him. Him wrestling with bionics that are going wrong. It's him dealing with extraordinary feelings of inadequacy and failure. You know, like that. That is where his failure. What happened. Where. Where did his life go wrong? Well, went wrong when he lost his legs. So if Docky kicks him in the knee, Right. He's not just kicking him in the knee. That is a. That is a horrifying, emotional wound that Daki is aggravating right there. And one of the things that I think is so interesting about the show and about Star wars in general is that in Episode four, Daki and Maul have a whole debate, really, for Devon's benefit. They have a whole debate about whose principles are more resilient, the Jedi's or the Sith? Whose principles are more resilient? Which philosophies is going to last through this catastrophe that we're all going through? And Maul goes, well, let us figure that out. Let's discover the truth. Pulls his lightsaber, wipes the floor with Daki. I mean, and you can see when he fights Devin, he's going, okay, check your footwork. Good. You're doing great. You're doing great. Okay, Daki's coming over. And then he just goes after him and just vicious and humiliates him. And then goes back to Evan and be like, do you see what I'm saying? You see what I'm doing? You know, he's teaching her. Even in that fight and in the midst of that fight where he is totally controlling the room, Daki gets in one knee kick. One knee kick, yeah. Daky then gets his ribs broken, thrown back. He's dealing with those injuries for the rest of the season, but he got that one knee kick in.

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

And Maul has to have it repaired. Okay, cool. And then One knee kick. That one knee kick is the first domino that ends up unraveling the entirety of Maul's plan by the end of the season, because it leads to everything that happens. The malfunctioning knee, what happens is he's fighting the inquisitors, but he takes a jump, and the knee kicks out some sparks because it's not totally repaired. And the inquisitors are like, oh. Huh. Interesting. And it just keeps getting worse and worse as everyone is let in on what this man's emotional vulnerability is, which leads to 108, where he almost falls back into madness because of this. And so if you were to answer the question in 104, whose philosophy is more resilient? You would say, well, it's the Sith or Maul's, rather, the philosophy of Maul's aggression. He is telling the truth. He's got this down. And look, clearly Daki can't handle this. Maul's philosophy is more resilient. But then you back up and you watch the whole season, and you go, dakis. Dakis. Daki's principles are more resilient. Docky is the only one who lands a hit on Big Daddy. You know Docy. Docy lands with your code name for Vader. That's right. That's what we would only say, Big Daddy, because we were afraid someone would hear the words Vader come out of our mouth. Daki lands. He's got a broken rib. She's like, are you okay? He's like, I'm not dead yet. He just keeps going and going and going and going because he is persevering. He's sticking with his principles. He is being a good person, and he's continuing on. Whereas Maul, One knee kick unravels his entire plan. So you go, no, actually, the Sith is quicker, more seductive. But if you. And you can look for pleasure and quick solutions and easy solutions. Because the other thing is that life is nuanced. Life requires constant gut checks, requires constant reflection, the kind of reflection that you cannot stop and perform if you're a Sith because you're afraid. You're so fearful that someone's going to get you. Someone's going to take something from you. So you never stop and reflect. The Jedi are always reflecting and realizing that everything is very complex. And sometimes there's no easy answers. The Sith have great sound bites because they're saying, it's very simple. It's that person's fault. Let's go get them. Very simple, seductive this person over here is the cause of all your suffering. Let's go. Get. Get him. Simple. Let's do it. But simplicity doesn't always equate to truth. It may sound true, but it requires more thought, more reflection, more breathing to figure your way out. So, again, the Sith. Quicker, easier, more seductive. The Jedi path is actually superior. But even through this season, the way we've crafted it, Maul did not really witness that.

[Joanna]

Right?

[Sam Witwer]

He's just trying to get through. He's trying to survive, is the great

[Mallory]

through line for Maul. Then you mentioned the inadequacy, like the loneliness and the sense of inferiority that stems from that. Because whether it is like. And, you know, we haven't talked as much about the crime syndicate aspect of the season, but whether it is his ceaseless, you know, with Savage and now Devon and eventually Ezra, pursuit of an apprentice, but also the crime syndicates like needing to feel. Some of it is about power. Some of it is about strength. Some of it is rule of two weaning. But how much of it is just choose me. Choose me and make. Make me feel that you chose me

[Joanna]

the way that my mentor did not choose me.

[Mallory]

Exactly. I was cast aside. So now I need to live my entire life in the pursuit of being chosen.

[Sam Witwer]

All of these types of issues. You know, I do feel a little bit like I have opinions about all these things, but I think that the more important opinion about any of these things is the audience. It's what they bring to it. It's something that Brad says all the time and that I try to learn from. There are times where you really want to have some very strong dialogue and you want to say what you mean, and then there are times where it's like, back off a little bit. Let the audience bring their experience to this, because their answers may be more interesting and more deep than what we have now. Incidentally, I do agree that the character is dealing and struggling with feelings of inadequacy, but ultimately, everything that I've said in this entire podcast, it's useless. It's not important. What's important is that people have an experience that is theirs. When it comes to the type of thing, that's the important thing. So here I am talking about Star wars, talking about the Force and bionic limbs and all this stuff, but it's really about how do we approach the challenges in our life. And the only people that can really answer these questions are, it's you. And it's you. The better answers lie with you than with me. So I've just undermined the entire interview.

[Mallory]

Great news. We love to talk about Mal, and we love to podcast. Podcast for hours on end about it, so that's fantastic. All right, we're gonna end with a little insight into the canon of our podcast for you, Joanna.

[Joanna]

The Great Apple Wars.

[Sam Witwer]

The Great Apple Wars.

[Joanna]

Yeah. Which have, you know, bedeviled us for years. It is Mallory's assertion that green apples are disgusting and worthless is my assertion,

[Mallory]

unless they're cooked in a pie, that

[Joanna]

a Granny Smith apple is the best apple that exists. She has a tattoo that is a red apple. My is on my back, but it's a green apple. And these are the apple wars. The apple wars. And when the video circulated of you

[Mallory]

eating a green apple, Just a devastating blow for me.

[Joanna]

It's just a huge win for me. So, yeah, I just wanted to welcome

[Mallory]

you to Team Green.

[Sam Witwer]

Thank you. I see this.

[Joanna]

Yeah. Thanks for being here.

[Mallory]

I brought the one red. I brought a, I think, beautiful sugar bee. That looks delicious and is sweet. And the skin is not so thick that it would cut your gums as you bit into it. And I'll just throw that out there.

[Sam Witwer]

Do you see that?

[Mallory]

And it was great.

[Sam Witwer]

She absolutely took a shot there.

[Joanna]

Oh, no. Constantly.

[Mallory]

That was crazy. Joanna selected all of these green apples, you know, and they're beautiful. I will say they look great. Would I want to eat one? No.

[Sam Witwer]

Oh, my God.

[Joanna]

How limiting.

[Sam Witwer]

Wow.

[Joanna]

How sad for you, honestly.

[Sam Witwer]

Yeah, I think we have to turn her.

[Mallory]

Is Maul team Green, though? Like, would Mol like saying he loves to say Kenobi, you know? Is that his favorite word to say? Or would it be Granny Smith apple?

[Sam Witwer]

You know, it's very, very close between those two. The green apple thing is actually that eating green apple slices and stuff like that when you're in a studio helps you. It reduces the sort of saliva sound in your mouth because you don't. Unless you're playing Jabba the Hutt, in

[Joanna]

which case, red apples all the way.

[Sam Witwer]

Red apples all the way.

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Sam Witwer]

But it. Team Jabba.

[Mallory]

I've got Jabba.

[Joanna]

Yeah, you've got Jabba.

[Sam Witwer]

Team Jabba.

[Joanna]

You got all the huts on your team. Good job.

[Sam Witwer]

I don't know that. Red apples in hand. I like both kinds of apples because balance in the force.

[Joanna]

Balance in the force.

[Mallory]

Damn. Small victory for me at the end.

[Sam Witwer]

You think that's the worst.

[Mallory]

Real peacemaker here. Unlike Maul.

[Sam Witwer]

I'm trying. I'm trying. You know, he's as he is. He's trying his best.

[Mallory]

You know, Sam thank you so much. Thank you for this. What is such a treat for us? Congrats on all of the success of season one. We cannot wait to keep watching Maul's Journey.

[Sam Witwer]

Oh, thank you.

[Joanna]

From here.

[Sam Witwer]

Thank you very much.

[Mallory]

Okay. Okay. What a chat.

[Joanna]

I have a reveal.

[Mallory]

What a treat.

[Joanna]

That interview was so impactful that I did die, and I have been force ghosting this entire podcast with you guys.

[Mallory]

Can you give Joe a little, like, kind of blue hue around her at least just for the outro here, just to really land the bit. The great effect.

[Joanna]

Guilty of the skills, right?

[Mallory]

I think so. I think so. That was wonderful.

[Joanna]

That was great.

[Mallory]

I was proud of both of us. Despite leaning into some of our, you know, the true spirit of House of Our. We had the apples, we did the bits, the Kenobi shirt, et cetera. Was proud that I wasn't like Aiden being human. Crash down Battlestar. Kept it together.

[Joanna]

You stayed composed.

[Mallory]

Stayed composed.

[Joanna]

I was deeply impressed by you.

[Mallory]

It was fun. You think he'll come back for season two?

[Joanna]

Well, he's a friend of the Pod now. Friend of the Pod? Yeah.

[Mallory]

That's how it works, right? You're here.

[Joanna]

Once you're a friend of the Pod,

[Mallory]

you're a friend of the. That's what. Friend of the Pod. For most people, friend of the Pod is like, you have been a friend of the Pod and then you get the title.

[Joanna]

No, not us is bestowed. Tim Oliphant, Friend of the Pod.

[Mallory]

Friend of the Pod. That dog who walked behind Timmy. Friend of the Pod. Was his name Ben?

[Joanna]

Could be.

[Mallory]

I think he's the dog.

[Joanna]

Ben Kenobi.

[Mallory]

Ben Kenobi. I do think that dog's name was Ben. Okay, thank you to Sam Witwer.

[Joanna]

I mean, come on.

[Mallory]

Most of all, Sam Whitmer. But thank you to everybody else as well. Our wonderful crew here. Carlos, Scott, Jamie, Arjuna, Jomi. Anyone else who's here today helping out

[Joanna]

the booking team that made Sam Witwer happen?

[Mallory]

That's right, Allison. Thank you to Allison Turner and the booking team for making that happen. That was such a treat to be able to chat with Sam. Thank you to anybody who heard Joanna's plea to make sure that Wilson Bethel is on this podcast in mere days took action.

[Joanna]

Yeah.

[Mallory]

And it came to be.

[Joanna]

They're not busy.

[Mallory]

We will see you on Thursday afternoon. Thursday evening for Daredevil born Again Season 2 finale, potentially with Wilson Bethel, if you have made it. So it's really on you. Bye. Bye. A text says you're on my mind. A bouquet from 1-800-FLowers says, you're my everything. Heartfelt moments belong in the real world, not just your phone. For 50 years, 1-800-Flowers has helped millions of people make memories that'll last a lifetime with gifts they'll cherish forever. Their expertly curated arrangements and gift baskets shipped nationwide with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Don't wait for the next big moment. Make it when you visit 1-800-Flowers.com Spotify today that's 1-800-Flowers.Com Spotify.

[Sam Witwer]

There's a new way to Sweetgreen Meat Wraps handheld, hearty and made for life on the move. With bold, chef crafted flavors, fresh ingredients, and over 40 grams of protein, they're built to satisfy without slowing you down. Try wraps today in the app [e-mail] available at all participating locations.