Star Wars fans react gleefully to David Tennant’s unexpected Ahsoka feature

Scottish actor reprises his ‘Star Wars: Clone Wars’ character

David Tennant has pleasantly surprised Star Wars fans with the reprisal of his Star Wars: Clone Wars character in Disney’s latest live-action spin-off, Ahsoka.

The new series, which follows former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy, released its first two episodes on Tuesday (22 August).

Following Ahsoka’s debut, numerous viewers expressed shock after finding out that Tennant was, in fact, the “sassy” voice behind Huyang, the Mark IV architect droid professor who, for thousands of years aboard the Crucible, taught Jedi younglings how to construct lightsabers.

“David Tennant in Star Wars?! Why did no one tell me this?!” one person wrote on X/Twitter.

“Love that David Tennant is finally in Star Wars,” a second commented.

“Guys i was watching Ahsoka with my brother and i thought the droid sounded like David Tennant so i looked it up and look,” a third wrote alongside a screenshot of a Google search confirming Tennant as Huyang.

“Still so funny to me how David Tennant was in Clone Wars (and now in Ahsoka) and i never knew that,” another added.

The Scottish actor, 52, made his Star Wars debut in the animated series Clone Wars, which first aired on Cartoon Network before moving to Netflix and finally Disney+.

Although Tennant only voiced Huyang in two episodes of the show’s seven-season series – which aired from 2008 to 2020 – he won an Emmy Award in 2013 for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Programme.

“Disney’s latest Star Wars outing is flat, flimsy and devoid of life,” The Independent’s Nick Hilton wrote in his two-star Ahsoka review.

“In the world of space operas, these are all more Florence Foster Jenkins than Luciano Pavarotti,” he added.

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Rosario Dawson also returns in the titular role of Ahsoka, whom she first originated in The Mandalorian.

The show’s first episode paid tribute to the late Northern Irish actor Ray Stevenson.

Stevenson, who starred as the villainous Baylan Skoll in the series, died in May aged 58. A cause of death has yet to be disclosed.

At the end of the first episode of Ahsoka, the words “For our friend, Ray” appeared.

New episodes of Ahsoka premiere every Thursday on Disney+.