The Mandalorian Producers Tease the Return of Ahmed Best as Kelleran Beq

The third season of The Mandalorian featured many surprises for Star Wars fans, and among the most notable was an appearance from Ahmed Best. In the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Best voiced Jar Jar Binks, one of the more controversial characters who received a great deal of backlash from fans of the series around that time. Best has since taken on the role of Jedi Master Kelleran Beq, a character he debuted on the online Star Wars themed game show Jedi Temple Challenge in 2020. In a season 3 episode of The Mandalorian, Best appeared in a flashback sequence with the character saving the fan favorite Grogu from harm.

The future of Kelleran Beq remains unclear, but two of the executive producers of The Mandalorian are optimistic about bringing the character back. Per Entertainment Weekly, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau addressed the possibility for the Dagobah Dispatch podcast. Filoni first teased that the door is always open for Best to return, as they were so thrilled to get him involved for the cameo he had in season 3. He went on to explain how he got Best to get involved. As Filoni says:

“It’s always a possibility [that Kelleran Beq will return]. We love Ahmed, and he did such a great job. It was a real thrill for us to get him involved. We talked with him about it. We come up with these ideas and we think: Who might work with it? We make sure before we get too far to bring them into the process, so it’s not just like, ‘Here’s who you’re going to play.’ It’s like, ‘What do you think of this? We want you to be this person. What are your thoughts on it?’ [We try to] make it a real collaboration and think it’s really key to the success of it.”

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Jon Favreau Wanted to Bring in the Game Show Host as a Serious Character

Favreau addressed how they were familiar with Best’s work with the Kelleran Beq character from his job as the host of Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge. Even though the online show is a non-canon game show, Favreau still saw great potential in the character and recognized the passion that had been put into making the Jedi Master. While putting together season 3 of The Mandalorian, it was realized that Best’s Jedi Master character deserved to be brought into the actual Star Wars canon, and that led to writing him into such an important scene.

“He had done a lot of work on that character of Kelleran Beq for Jedi Temple Challenge. So he’s been involved with Star Wars all the way through and definitely had formulated this character. And we love to draw from all of Star Wars, and even things that aren’t canon. If they feel right, we’ll pull ’em in. And now that character exists squarely in Star Wars canon.”

Also further teasing Best’s return as Kelleran, Favreau added:

“I think people dig seeing that character. I want to learn more about that character.”

You can stream The Mandalorian on Disney+.