MMA star and former Disney actress Gina Carano revealed that she hasn’t spoken to Pedro Pascal, her Mandalorian co-star, in years.
The 44-year-old is in the midst of a public comeback after a bitter battle with Disney. In an extensive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Carano shared what has happened since people “really tried to get me canceled, and succeeded,” as she puts it.
The fallout trickled into her relationships with her former co-stars.
Carano told the Reporter, “Me and Pedro don’t keep in touch.” She said the last time she spoke to Pascal, 51, was over two years ago, when their fellow castmate Carl Weathers died at age 76.
In 2021, after Carano shared a social media post that compared America’s political climate and cancel culture to Nazi Germany, the actress was fired by Disney. She was publicly criticized by Lucasfilm, the production company behind The Mandalorian, and let go by her talent agency, UTA.
Fans quickly condemned Carano for a series of transphobic posts she made. Carano previously alleged that Pascal, who has a trans sister, gave her advice on how to handle the backlash.
“He was telling me, ‘Just put #transrights in your feed. Do it, and they’ll leave you alone.’ ” Carano told the Hollywood Reporter in 2024, but added she did not do so “because that’s not my style, to put hashtag anything.”
“Me and Pedro were so close,” she said. “He knows 1,000 percent I’m not homophobic or transphobic.
Carano said that Pascal messaged her after Weathers’s death, explaining, “We had our conversation, and it was beautiful. One thing he did say was, ‘Thank you. You and Carl Weathers have always been protectors.’ And he knows what that means, and I know what that means, and I wish I could tell why. We basically left it at ‘I can’t wait to give you a big hug.’”
But while Carano and Pascal remain estranged, she has apparently rekindled her relationship with Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. The actress shared that she, Favreau, and Filoni got on a Zoom call this January.
“Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were two people that I always respected, and we went through two seasons together, and we had a great relationship. And even during everything that was happening, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were never the bad guys to me,” she told THR in her latest conversation.
“To Zoom, to see each other, to mend whatever, to make sure everybody was good. And everybody was good,” she said. Carano dubbed Favreau a “good man” and a “great storyteller.”
Carano did not reveal whether she will make a comeback in the Star Wars universe or with Disney.
After she was fired, Carano claimed Disney discriminated against her and filed a lawsuit against the company, which was funded by billionaire and former Trump ally Elon Musk. In Carano’s statement announcing the suit, she thanked Musk and said she was ready to fight against “the most powerful entertainment company in the world.”
“My words were consistently twisted to demonize & dehumanize me as an alt right wing extremist. It was a bullying smear campaign aimed at silencing, destroying & making an example out of me,” she wrote on X.
In 2025, Disney and Carano settled the suit.
Since her firing five years ago, Carano has fully embraced the MAGA movement, publicly supporting President Donald Trump and urging voters to back him in the 2024 election.
In Disney and Lucasfilm’s statement after the legal agreement with Carano, the companies said: “We look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.”
“Ms. Carano was always well respected by her directors, co-stars and staff, and she worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect,” the statement read.
Carano remarked upon the statement, telling the Hollywood Reporter, “It’s such a remarkable contrast from that first very horrendous statement that they had put out years earlier. I don’t recall Disney really doing that a lot at the time. That speaks leagues.”
The next chapter in the Mandalorian universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, will release on May 22. The feature film is directed by Favreau and stars Pascal.
Carano is poised for her own on-screen comeback, returning after a 17-year-long hiatus from fighting to compete against UFC legend Ronda Rousey. The televised fight will stream on Netflix.
