Claudia Black won’t return as the Nightsister Klothow in Ahsoka season 2 because Disney couldn’t pay her enough and moved the production to London.
Claudia Black Not Returning to Ahsoka
While promoting Spartacus: House of Ashur, Black told Bleeding Cool, “Disney, which is structuring things differently these days, could not pay me what I needed to be paid as a single mother to keep all my responsibilities going at home in Los Angeles, because they were filming in London.”
She elaborated to The Hollywood Reporter, “When I did the first season, people assumed that I’m making hundreds of thousands of dollars. It could not be further from the truth on a role like this. [My pay was] closer to what I was earning when I was 19 or in my early 20s.”
Black appeared in three of the season’s eight episodes, and though the Nightsisters were an important role, she was not a main character by far.
Black added to THR, “I have heard people who work in corporations, not necessarily Disney, but all these bigger corporations, they have spoken in rooms about how lucky the actors should be to be part of a successful franchise, and that they will take it for the screen credit and they will take it for a bit of money, and then hopefully that will bring them further work, but that they should be lucky. The issue I have is when that comes to women, other people who were able to say yes to this job didn’t have the same responsibilities, and that thinking is not designed around how much invisible work women do in a household.
“I have a great community, I have an amazing life. It’s just something needs to change and this needs to be discussed, and I knew the risks and I think there’s more power in me stepping back, because I’m not desperate and there’s more power in me talking about it even though there’s so little job security and there’s so little psychological safety in these spaces when women do speak up.”
She said she knows Disney’s decisions weren’t personal and that it’s a “difficult situation and the industry is fragile because if you push too hard, nothing gets made.”
“I’m not saying I’ve been treated poorly in this instance with Ahsoka, not at all,” she added. “It’s just that we’re not thought about, we’re not factored in, because there’s so much invisible work that women do in a household, even when they’re married. And it’s far from invisible to themselves when they’re an unpartnered mother, such as myself, and I think people assume that I’ve got a whole team of people picking up after me.”
After deciding to leave the show, Black sent an email to Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni to “thank him for the ride and for all the happiness on set,” as well as explain the full story to him.
She continued, “I hope they understand that me talking about this is not in the least bit personal. It’s about a discussion about the business because it certainly wasn’t built for people like me. And I don’t expect anyone to pay for my life choices except me, but I do want the awareness to grow around the diversity of people in this business. If they want to have the aura of an older woman who has all this lived experience, but they don’t wanna help actually support her, then there’s a problem.”
THR said Black’s role would be recast, although Disney and Lucasfilm have not confirmed this.
Ray Stevenson played Baylan Skoll is season 1 but passed away before it aired. The character has been recast as Rory McCann. Most of the cast is returning, including Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla, Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati, Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger, Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker.
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