Before he was seen shapeshifting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Talos, or antagonizing Tye Sheridan as Nolan Sorrento in Ready Player One, one of the most prominent roles on Ben Mendelsohn’s resume was Orson Krennic in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. While the Imperial officer met an ironic demise at the hands of the first Death Star, don’t think that means the actor doesn’t have strong Star Wars-related feelings. This has just been shown off by him calling out a Rebel phone case on TikTok, which will amuse Star Wars fans to know end.
This hilarious moment happened while Ben Mendelsohn was speaking to IGN on the red carpet for the world premiere of Secret Invasion, the miniseries that sees Mendelsohn reprising Talos, and is just days away from arriving to Disney+ subscribers. Before the interview started, the actor noticed the phone case for the phone being used to record the conversations, which led to him giving his two passionate two cents on the matter, as you’ll see below.
@ign
♬ original sound – IGN
It’s been almost seven full years have passed since Rogue One’s release, and while that movie saw Orson Krennic meeting his demise on Scarif when the Death Star, the superweapon he’d spent years working on as the Empire’s director of advanced weapons research, he made his Imperial allegiances quite clear in this video. Initially thinking that the Star Wars phone case showed one of the ships Krennic traveled on, he soon realized it was the Millennium Falcon, which was piloted by Han Solo and Chewbacca during the Original Trilogy time period. That was enough for him to start calling out the camera guy’s choice in phone decoration, calling it a “filthy Rebel” background. Still, at least he apologized shortly thereafter for that slight outburst, saying he was “having a phase shift.”
You have to hand it to the man, after all this time, he still feels passionately about his Star Wars character’s allegiances, though not enough to detract from plugging his work in the MCU. Although Rogue One was Ben Mendelsohn’s sole major outing as Orson Krennic, the actor did briefly reprise the character vocally for Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which will end with Season 3. Maybe there’ll be another opportunity for him to voice Krennic again in that animated series, or perhaps Andor Season 2 could somehow find a way for Mendelsohn to appear on camera as him again. If this ends up happening, we’ll let you know.
The first episode of Secret Invasion drops Wednesday, June 21 on Disney+, the same platform where you can watch the Star Wars movies in order and the franchise’s numerous series. As for what the future holds in store for a galaxy far, far away, that information can be found in our guide of upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows.