Emily Swallow shares changes to The Book of Boba Fett after filming

Despite being a considerably newer addition to the long list of iconic helmets in the Star Wars universe, the Armorer's headpiece has become an intricate part of Mandalorian lore. It is unique—different from the ones worn by other Mandalorian warriors—just like its wearer's status among the clan.

In the real world, however, the helmet posed a bit of trouble for Emily Swallow, the actor who brilliantly portrays the character on all Star Wars Disney+ shows.

During The Mandalorian cast reunion panel at MCM London in May 2024 via Popverse, Swallow revealed that wearing the helmet often made it difficult to understand fellow actors while filming scenes. "We need that connection in the scenes. It wouldn't play the same. You can't see our lips move - it wouldn't play the same if we were sort of guessing what the other one was saying," she said. "It wouldn't have the right energy. There is still a timing to it. There's still a connection to it."

The Mandalorian sect the Armorer belongs to (as well as Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin), called the Children of the Watch, is an orthodox group that does not allow its members to ever take their helmets off. To date, we have not seen the Armorer's face or known her real name.

The tradition of having the actors' faces obscured with helmets seems to have a positive side as well. Swallow explained at the panel that it allowed for some significant changes to the dialog after the scenes had already been filmed.

"My episode of The Book of Boba Fett, I spend three or four hours in an ADR session – which, if you don’t know, stands for Additional Dialogue Recording, and it's when you have to record stuff after you’ve already shot it – because they changed so many of the lines. Which you can do when you can’t see somebody’s mouth open."

In The Book of Boba Fett, we see the Armorer in the fifth episode, "Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian," along with Pascal's Din Djarin and Tait Fletcher's Paz Vizsla. She makes a chainmail for Grogu out of Din's beskar spear, explains to Din the rules of his newly acquired Darksaber, and oversees a combat challenge between him and Paz over the weapon.

While Swallow did not go into detail about which lines were changed after filming, it is fascinating to know how a show's costumes can offer such creative freedom to the showrunners, even in such high-stakes productions.