The Real Life Partners Of The Mandalorian Cast

There is no film franchise quite like George Lucas' Star Wars. While animated series like The Clone Wars started to bring the intergalactic universe to the small screen, Disney Plus' The Mandalorian marked the first live-action show from Lucasfilm. To no one's surprise, the show's first season was an epic hit, becoming the "most in-demand series in the world" upon its premiere in November 2019, according to Forbes.

The show took home seven Primetime Emmy Awards in its first season alone, and its critical acclaim has extended to its incredible cast featuring A-listers like Pedro Pascal and Gina Carano, as well as Hollywood mainstays like Omid Abtahi and Emily Swallow. While audiences have been entranced by the story of a bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) who fights to retrieve and protect "The Child" — colloquially known as Baby Yoda — there's been just as much interest in its talented and attractive cast.

So, what are these epic heroes and villains up to when they're not saving the galaxy? Here are the real life partners of The Mandalorian cast.

Taika Waititi lent his voice to The Mandalorian's bad-turned-good droid IG-11 and directed the show's season one finale. Known for his quirky lens in films like 2017's Thor: Ragnarok and 2019's Jojo Rabbit, it's no surprise that the acclaimed director is married to Chelsea Winstanley, another filmmaker with a unique voice of her own.

The couple first met when Winstanley interviewed Waititi for a documentary on indigenous Polynesian New Zealander artists, per the New Zealand Herald. The two met again on-set of Waititi's 2010 film Boy — Winstanley worked as an assistant production coordinator — and two years later, they were hitched. The couple has two daughters together (via The Loop) as well as an older son Winstanley raised on her own, per New Zealand Herald.

As of March 2020, however, Page Six reported that this couple was no more; in fact, it looks like they may have "quietly separated two years ago," since Waititi was "spotted out with a possible new love interest." While we don't have much to go on, Metro U.K. snagged a since-deleted tweet by Winstanley. After one fan tweeted a photo of a hand-drawn portrait of the couple, Winstanley responded with a simple hashtag: "#notmyhusband." At the time of this writing, only time will tell if either celeb speaks out about their split.

Werner Herzog is something of a legend in the cinema world, although he admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that he had "never seen a Star Wars film" before taking on the villainous role of The Client in The Mandalorian. The prolific German director is extremely private about his personal life. He has an older son, Rudolph, with ex-wife Martje Grohmann; Simon, with ex-wife Christine Maria Ebenberger; and a daughter, Hanna, from his relationship with Eva Mattes. As Herzog told The Guardian, "It is very complex. But I have good relations with all the women I have been with."

In 1999, it seems like the director found his happily ever after with Russian artist and photographer Lena Herzog (neé Pisetski), whom he married in 1999.

The couple tends to keep their relationship to themselves and let their art speak volumes. Werner wrote the introduction to Lena's 2002 photograph collection Pilgrims, and in 2009, they collaborated on a photo book to accompany Werner's film The Bad Lieutenant. Lena attended The Mandalorian premiere alongside Werner (pictured above), who told The Hollywood Reporter that he's "'one of the very few' happily married men he knows" in 2015. The director suggested that some of his films, like Queen of the Desert, even reflect lessons he's learned from his marriage. "My life is somehow appearing in the films," he told the outlet. "There is sometimes no distinction between life and cinema."

Omid Abtahi may portray Dr. Pershing, the conniving scientist assisting The Client in The Mandalorian, but the American Gods actor is much softer off-screen. Abtahi is married to Sabrina Bolin, who works as a soul alignment coach, according to her website. The busy mom and entrepreneur originally had similar aspirations to her husband's, writing on Instagram that she "firmly believed my future held awards shows and red carpet premieres honoring the part I had played bringing great stories to life on the big screen," although her dreams came true in a different way as she's been able to "celebrate [Omid's] talent and work."

While the couple tends not to discuss their relationship publicly, their communication tends to inform Bolin's motivational work, and she was the first to welcome Abtahi to Twitter in 2014, declaring she was his "#1 fan (tied with [his] mom of course)." The couple attended The Mandalorian premiere together (pictured above) and live in "a magical cottage with an enchanted backyard in the heart of Los Angeles," per Bolin's website, raising their son Miles.

Emily Swallow may give a winning portrayal of The Armorer, The Mandalorian's mystifying blacksmith, but she originally had no idea what she was getting into. "It was remarkably low-key," she told Vanity Fair of the audition process. "There hadn't been anything announced that there was [going] to be a Star Wars series." She told Hollywood Life that she's "giddy beyond belief" to be a part of the iconic franchise, and thankfully, she's married to another big Star Wars fan: Broadway star Chad Kimball. "She met Baby Yoda before any of us knew there was a Baby Yoda," he gushed to the New York Post in 2020.

According to Broadway.com, the two got married in Washington in 2018 after meeting at a performance of Come From Away's pre-Broadway run. Kimball was an original cast member and continues to perform with the show in New York, while Swallow has a few theatrical credits of her own, including a run in Broadway's High Fidelity in 2006. 

The couple lives in New York City, where, as Kimball told the New York Post, they've been working on producing a project together: "little comic sketch videos," starring their furry child Norma Jean, a Boston terrier mix. 

Actress Rosario Dawson joined season two of The Mandalorian with a guest role as Ahsoka Tano, according to Variety. Although the extent of Dawson's involvement and the future of her character has been kept tightly under wraps, the Zombieland: Double Tap star's love life is less of a mystery. 

Dawson has been dating New Jersey senator Cory Booker since 2018, according to Buzzfeed News, and she moved into his three-story home in Newark in late 2020. "This is the first time in my life I've really lived with somebody – and obviously Rosario and I are enjoying and adjusting to that," Booker told the outlet that year. An avid progressive, Dawson is right at home with her political beau, having campaigned for Bernie Sanders in 2016 before joining Booker in his bid for the 2020 Democratic ticket.

For her part, Dawson, who also is mom to a 16-year-old adopted daughter Isa, told The Washington Post that she is "absolutely in love" with Booker. Because he's no stranger to the public eye, the two bonded over their similarities and hectic schedules. "For my whole life, I've always felt like, even when I got into a relationship, I was trying to be the center of the storm and everything was just this maelstrom out there," Dawson explained to The Washington Post in 2019. "But for the first time, I feel like I have someone in the center of the storm with me."

Michael Biehn is best known for his role as Kyle Reese in 1984's The Terminator, though that may change with his new gig in season two of The Mandalorian. While Disney has been tight-lipped about his rumored spot as a bounty hunter (via The Hollywood Reporter), the Grindhouse star isn't as secretive when it comes to his love life.

He was poised to be an '80s action star à la Bruce Willis, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and while that didn't quite pan out, Biehn, who has five sons and has been married three times, told the outlet it's better off that way. "[It] was always important to me that I was going to be closer to [my kids] than I was to the movie business," he said. 

Biehn is married to actress Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, whom he runs Blanc Biehn Productions with. The pair produced and starred in Biehn's directorial debut The Victim in 2011 and have gone on to produce a handful of video-on-demand horror flicks like She Rises, Treachery, and Killer Weekend. The two have a young son together and live a relatively low-key life, just the way Biehn envisioned. "The amount of movies Bruce Willis makes, I don't see how you can live a normal life where you see your kids all the time," he explained to THR in 2019. "You're taking them to school and baseball practice and you're coaching their teams. You're in their lives."

The Mandalorian season two marks Temuera Morrison's return to the Star Wars universe after he portrayed Jango Fett in 2002's Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Morrison is taking on the iconic role of Boba Fett for the Disney Plus show, although his character is "expected to play just a small role," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The New Zealand actor has an expansive filmography, with roles in blockbusters like Aquaman, Green Lantern, Moana, and Dora and the Lost City of Gold, although after 2013's short-lived reality show The Life and Times of Temuera Morrison, he tends to keep his personal life on the down-low.

According to Stuff, Morrison has two children with previous flames Kim Willoughby and Peata Melbourne, respectively, and admits that women are his "weakness." However, it seems the storied actor has settled down and appears to still be with Ashlee Howden-Sadlier, who made an appearance in his reality show (via New Zealand Herald). Howden-Sadlier, who's nearly 26 years his junior, has been his live-in partner since the early 2000s, per Stuff, and reportedly only realized their difference in age after looking at his passport. 

While Morrison's on-screen career seems to be picking up, he remains private about their relationship, although it seems like they might have welcomed a new bundle of joy to the family in 2019, per Howden-Sadlier's Facebook page.

Timothy Olyphant has already been crowned "TV's Best Marshal" by Den of Geek for his portrayal of Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian season two. The Justified and Deadwood star has been building a career in Hollywood since the mid-'90s, with his college sweetheart Alexis Knief by his side. According to Heavy, the two met in 1990 at the University of Southern California and got married a year later. The secret to their long-lasting marriage? "You have to be with the right person, and you both have to be willing to do the work, day in and day out, to make it happen," Olyphant told Women's Health in 2011.

The couple has three kids together, and while Olyphant jokingly told Women's Health that fatherhood was "f**king exhaust[ing]," he enjoys every moment he gets to spend with his family. "I've started to enjoy my time off as much as I enjoy working," he explained to Esquire in 2014, adding that he has "good kids," and "it's not lost on [him] that a blink of an eye and they won't be around to complain about."

From Broadway to the big screen and his role on Bloodline, John Leguizamo has done it all, so it was only fitting that he made a cameo appearance in the premiere episode of The Mandalorian's second season. Leguizamo portrayed Gor Koresh, an alien who squares up against Mando (Pedro Pascal), although the odds are definitely not in his favor, and he is left for dead, according to Inverse. Thankfully, Leguizamo's off-screen life isn't quite as dramatic.

After six years of dating — and "an exotic marriage proposal staged deep in the jungles of Mexico" — Leguizamo married estate planner Justine Maurer in 2003, according to People. The couple's two children, a daughter, named Allegra, and a son named Ryder, were even part of the ceremony, serving as flower girl and ring bearer, respectively. While Leguizamo is madly in love with his wife — he told the outlet that she was "more beautiful than [he'd] ever dreamed" on their wedding day — it's fatherhood that has been the biggest "game changer" (via People En Español). "They took me to the next level of my life," he told the outlet in 2019, adding that his family is his "greatest joy." 

His children even inspired 2019's hit Broadway show and Netflix special Latin History for Morons. "By trying to educate them about the Latin contributions to the United States, I was the one that was empowered," he said of the show's inception.