TV & Beyond on 2025-04-30 04:15:00

George Lucas announced that he’d been in development on more films and would be selling Lucasfilm to Disney. This paved the way for Jimmy Smits to return to the role twice more — once on the big screen in 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and again on the 2022 Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” where the show finally explained one of the oldest relationships in all of “Star Wars.”

It would seem, though, that might truly be the end of the line for Jimmy Smits and his run playing the character. As of 2025’s second season of “Andor,” Senator Bail Organa has been recast again.

Jimmy Smits does not appear as Bail Organa in Andor season 2

Lucasfilm

A quiet surprise awaited fans watching the second season of “Andor” as we were re-introduced to Senator Bail Organa, but it wasn’t the familiar face of Jimmy Smits who greeted us. Instead, it was Benjamin Bratt. Bratt is probably best known for his roles in “Law and Order,” “Miss Congeniality,” and as the voice of Ernesto De La Cruz in Pixar’s “Coco.” But now he’ll be taking the mantle of “Star Wars” actor and Senator from Alderaan — though exactly how many more stories in live-action there are to tell with Bail Organa is anyone’s guess after “Andor.”

Seeing Bratt in the role was a bit disorienting at first, but the filmmakers behind the show wisely gave us a cameo in an episode first to get audiences used to the change. By his next inevitable appearance (you knew a character this big wasn’t going to be relegated to only one minute of screen time), his mannerisms, voice, and gravitas, coupled with the Alderaanian garb and cape that could belong to no other, convince us wholly that he has fully embodied the role of Bail Organa. It ends up working perfectly, and in a show written as well as “Andor,” it’s hard to fault them for recasting him instead of writing such an important character out of the story entirely when Jimmy Smits wasn’t available for whatever reason (as of this writing, there’s been no reason provided for the switch).

“Andor” season 2 airs new episodes weekly on Disney+.

TV & Beyond on 2025-04-30 04:15:00

Jimmy Smits does not appear as Bail Organa in Andor season 2

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