In the first season finale of the Star Wars series The Mandalorian on Disney+, the asset officially referred to as “The Child” and lovingly referred to as Baby Yoda was kidnapped by Imperial Scout Troopers. The little guy is being held in a satchel, and he keeps wiggling around inside of it, trying to get out. So one of the Scout Troopers just punches the bag, and fans were not having it.
One of the Scout Troopers was portrayed by Jason Sudeikis, and he was surprised to find himself trending on social media last year when it was revealed that he was the one who dared to lay a finger on the galactic treasure known as Baby Yoda. Weirdly enough, it had been so long since he shot that scene, it didn’t register to him that the combination of Baby Yoda becoming a pop culture phenomenon and him punching the character would turn into such a big deal. So until he started trending on Twitter, he had kinda forgotten about it.
Jason Sudeikis was recently interviewed by Uproxx in support of the new remotely produced TBS comedy competition series Tournament of Laughs. He was inevitably asked about his moment of Star Wars fame, which is bigger than most celebrities who have been lucky enough to snag a cameo in the Star Wars universe. Sudeikis recalled:
“You know what? I kind of forgot about it. I can’t remember exactly how many weeks, months went by from when Adam Pally and I did that with [Jon] Favreau and Taika Waititi. For me, the most significant thing was my little boy Otis, who, like any little kid from the last 50 years, loves Star Wars. And I remember he even got to see baby Yoda. And it didn’t hit me when that became such a huge thing when the first episode of Mandalorian premiered and everybody went hog wild about Yoda, baby Yoda, it didn’t even hit me then like, ‘Oh shit.'”
Sudeikis went on to explain how he found out the internet was pissed off at him, resulting in him trending on Twitter. The actor explained that he was playing video games with his son when he got the news from his partner, actress Olivia Wilde:
“Olivia came into the room and goes, ‘Hey, you’re trending on Twitter,’ and I’m not active on social media, so in this day and age it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ And then immediately it’s like, ‘Wait, why?’ I have no idea why. I already got a hard enough last name to spell. For it to be trending is bonkers, and then when she says, ‘Apparently you punched Baby Yoda,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s right!’ I totally forgot that I literally hit… then I watched it and I was like, ‘I’ll be darned. How about that?'”
So for a little while, Jason Sudeikis was playfully made out to be the bad guy, and it was a rather weird experience for him. The actor went on:
“It was very surreal and I started getting texts from friends going, ‘You bastard’ and people saying like, ‘Did you really get to wear the suit or was that just your voice?’ All those funny questions.”
Jason Sudeikis may have been Public Enemy #1 for a little while, but now Hasbro has a game where they actually demand that you punch Baby Yoda yourself. So who’s the bad guy now?
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