It’s hard to imagine the last decade-plus of Star Wars animation without Dee Bradley Baker. Starting with 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he’s played several characters across many of Lucasfilm’s animated series, but as the voice of the Republic’s clones — all of them! — he’s been a constant presence. What’s proved most impressive is Baker’s ability to differentiate those clones through subtleties in his performance, from imbuing Rex with a sense of confidence to conveying Gregor’s quirks through a higher pitch.
But Baker has truly shined in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, playing five leading roles in the titular team of genetically-mutated clones: Hunter, the steady leader; Crosshair, the angsty loner; Wrecker, the hulking giant with a heart; Tech, the science whiz; and Echo, the cyborg soldier. These characters often have scenes where they’re talking to each other and, as a testament to Baker’s talent, you’d never know it was one actor performing all the parts in real-time. It’s astonishing.
Through two seasons of the Disney+ animated series, the Bad Batch have tried to survive in the dawn of the Empire. Season 3, premiering February 21, will end the series — and Baker is feeling a mix of emotions. “I’m excited. I'm gratified. I'm thrilled, really. I'm also a little bit sad, but mostly I'm thrilled to see this brought in for a landing, and mostly because I can't wait to hear fans' reactions to how much they're going to love it and how good this is. If you love the Bad Batch and if you love Star Wars, this is as good as that gets,” he tells StarWars.com. “And it's just such a beautiful job done by [executive producers] Brad [Rau] and Jen [Corbett] and Dave [Filoni] and everyone involved with this, Michelle [Ang, Omega actor]. It's been the privilege of a lifetime — of my career — to be involved with it, I must say. That's how I feel.”
Season 2 ended with the shocking death of Tech, as he sacrificed himself to save his fellow Batchers. For a team with a knack for seemingly getting out of every life-or-death situation, it took the fandom by surprise, and Baker has heard a lot from viewers since. “I've been through a lot of conventions over the past year, and fans are deeply bereft and stricken and holding out hope. I tell them it's a life well-lived,” he says. Baker has tried to comfort fans in the lead up to Season 3, focusing on the meaning behind Tech’s final act. “It's a soldier's life that is admirable and heroic in all the best sense. A heroic sacrifice is the end that any soldier on the clone army would wish for. They're trained to fight and they're trained to win and work together and problem solve and to do the right thing. And Tech does all of those things in his final gesture that keeps the mission alive and saves his colleagues, his friends, his family. I couldn't wish the fellow any more. For me personally and for everybody else, yes, we want him to live longer, but I wouldn't want to dull the gesture — the gesture of his final act of heroism.”
Season 3 finds the Bad Batch splintered, if not broken. How they pick up the pieces will be the driving question of the early episodes. “The biggest predicament is that Omega and Crosshair are in the clutches of the diabolical scientist, Dr. Royce Hemlock, and his assistant, Emerie. It's a question of what are they going to do to Omega and will Crosshair survive this? There's nothing good going on there, and clones are very much expendable in the eyes of the Empire,” Baker says. He also points to Crosshair’s personal arc, especially his “epiphany” in Season 2 as to the true nature of the Empire and his mistake in aligning with it, as another major thread in Season 3. “There are a lot of fans who are very interested in that journey and rightfully so,” he says. “It's beautifully written and it's a very compelling story, I think.”
Indeed, Baker has previously named Crosshair as his favorite of the Batch, mainly due to the complexities of the character. The actor hopes that the layers within Crosshair, and everything he’s been through, will be reflected in his performance. “He is broken. I mean, he is changed, he's turned, but he's broken,” Baker says. “He's imprisoned, and he is down about as far as that guy can get. And so that's a very different situation for Crosshair. He's no longer a free agent. He's not free. He's a prisoner and also an experimental subject. He is at the mercy of this machine that he miscalculated to serve at the end of Season 1 and then through Season 2, until he finally realized what the situation was. So the tone and pace of his character, the energy of his character, is a different one. It's one of a beaten man and one who also harbors a lot of regrets and lacks hope and lacks a path forward. And that's a very different creature from what we've seen of him previously.”
But Crosshair is not alone. Omega is also in Imperial custody, and Baker loves the idea of putting these Batchers together, like a clone Odd Couple. “He is the most reluctant and pessimistic of the Bad Batch. By far. So you pair him with the polar opposite of that, which is Omega, who is as can-do, positive, let's find a way, let's have faith in ourselves, and in our collaborative ability to problem solve things. You couldn't get more of that than you do with Omega, which to me is so gratifying and interesting about this third season, is to watch her very much come into her own. Not just as a team member, but as a leader, as someone who envisions the most daunting problem being solved and, knowing that through her faith in her good friends, that a solution can be found and will be found, and she, by golly, is going to do it.”
And so as the final season is about to begin, and the emotions that come with it for Baker, he’s confident in what The Bad Batch Season 3 will deliver.
“The third season really covers everything. I’ve got to say, having seen it now, that it is the best of the three seasons and the most satisfying on all levels of this storytelling that is the best that Star Wars can be,” he says. “I'm incredibly proud of it and really impressed. It's so beautiful, and it's moving and it's meaningful. It also goes in some directions that I think that fans will not expect and that will be very welcome, and memorable in a very enduring way.”
- Go inside the final season with executive producers Brad Rau and Jennifer Corbett
- Hear from executive producer Athena Portillo
- Meet Michelle Ang
