'He's the light of all of our lives': 'The Mandalorian' director Bryce Dallas Howard talks 'Baby Yoda'
"Baby Yoda" broke the internet again during last Friday's episode of "The Mandalorian," which was directed by actress and filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard.
In an interview with Variety, Howard -- the "Jurassic World" franchise lead and daughter of Oscar-winner Ron Howard -- said it was the "highlight" of the job to work with the newest "Star Wars" star, who isn't actually a baby of the Jedi master, just a 50-year-old toddler of the same species.
"He is the light of all of our lives," she enthused. "It's so exhilarating to be able to share my love and obsession with him with others."
A single reaction shot in the episode of the baby eating a bowl of soup immediately replaced the classic "Kermit sipping tea" meme for some. It comes during a break in a knock-down, drag-out fight between the Mandalorian and Cara Dune, a character played by former MMA star Gina Carano.
Howard shared, "Gina and Mando's stunt double were just destroying each other. And then it gets to Baby sipping his soup and everything else goes away, all these amazing feats of athleticism and martial arts, and ... just becomes 'Baby with soup.'"
She added, "I had worked with the same puppeteering folks on "Terminator [Salvation]" and "Jurassic [World]," so we spent a lot of time playing with the puppet, we wanted to use it as much as possible rather than relying on CG…”
"All we wanted to do was a zillion takes of how Baby was going to drink his soup. ... Would he drink it with one hand? Sipping it a lot? ... Baby just wins every scene he's in," Howard said.
In the end, they chose two hands, the small bowl looking huge in his tiny hands. And the rest, as they say, is history.
A new episode of "The Mandalorian" goes live every Friday on Disney+. Four episodes remain in the show's first season.
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