{"id":559095,"date":"2026-04-01T23:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/559095\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:12:11","slug":"sam-witwer-is-ready-for-mauls-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/559095\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Witwer Is Ready for Maul’s Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of Star Wars characters come back from the seemingly certain grave<\/a> for a lot of reasons, but there are few characters you can say have been saved by an entire medium like animation saved Darth Maul<\/a>. Thirteen years after Maul\u2014two separate parts<\/a> of Maul, really\u2014fell into the abyss in\u00a0Phantom Menace,\u00a0The Clone Wars did more than just bring the character back as a familiar face; it made Maul an actual character, one whose rebirth would add layers of nuance and interest to a figure who had largely existed in 1999 to look cool and sell action figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fourteen years on from that return, we\u2019ve seen Maul live, thrive, stumble, and eventually fall seemingly for good one last time. He\u2019s gone back to the big screen; he\u2019s driven not one but two Star Wars animated series to their dramatic, emotional climaxes. And now, next week, he is ready to enter the spotlight on his own terms in\u00a0Maul: Shadow Lord<\/a>\u2014where we meet Maul and the voice who has helped shape and drive his character for over a decade, Star Wars superfan Sam Witwer<\/a>, at a very different time in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there were ever a time to visit this character\u2019s life, it is exactly when the Empire comes to power, because Maul is a classically trained Force user who came from a time of knights, and honor, and magic, and color,\u201d Witwer recently reflected with io9 over Zoom. \u201cBut now the knights are dead, and the magic and the color is being sucked out of the galaxy by the evil galactic empire. And whose empire is that? The Emperor\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shadow Lord is set shortly after the events of\u00a0Revenge of the Sith\u2014with Maul still fresh from the wounds he endured on Mandalore from his battles with both his master and Ahsoka Tano, and still fresh in his career as the head of a criminal syndicate. But despite those defeats still lingering, for Witwer, the show is a chance to really see Maul on a mission with personal stakes, one rooted in that feeling of betrayal left by his first death in The Phantom Menace.<\/p>\n

\"Star\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

\u201cWho is the Emperor to Maul? That\u2019s the man who raised him,\u201d Witwer continued, possessed with a passion for his character typically reserved for people who go on Wookieepedia deep dives as a daily enrichment activity (it would not be that much of a surprise to believe Witwer does exactly that). \u201cSo [in Shadow Lord], Maul is looking around going, \u2018Okay, I knew that we were trying to build an empire. I didn\u2019t think it was going to be like this. This is grotesque. This is ugly. The only thing that exists here are naked grants for power, and wealth, and influence, and not even\u2014I mean, influence for what? In service to what?’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a black hole of energy everywhere, and it\u2019s all everywhere he looks: the Emperor\u2019s hand. So Maul is trying to figure out who he is, and what is he going to do about this?\u201d<\/p>\n

What Maul is going to do about this is be his own man for once. The Maul we\u2019ve seen in his animated iterations so far has largely been driven by the whims of forces around him\u2014especially in Clone Wars, where his return was part of the machinations of both the Nightsisters of his homeworld Dathomir and came with the rise of his brother Savage Opress. In Shadow Lord, Maul flies solo.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been out there, yes, he had his brother, Savage, but he was doing what the Emperor had trained him to do back then,\u201d Witwer added. \u201cNow he\u2019s not. Now he\u2019s coming up with his own ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except Maul isn\u2019t as alone in\u00a0Shadow Lord as you might first think. While the series catches up with members of his nascent Shadow Collective, Maul\u2019s real foil in the series isn\u2019t really the agents of the Empire or his former master but a young Jedi survivor, Devon Izara (voiced in the show by Gideon Adlon). A padawan fleeing the aftermath of Order 66, Devon quickly becomes one of Shadow Lord\u2018s most intriguing characters, for both the audience and Maul.<\/p>\n

\"Star\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

\u201cAs he is reassessing everything in his life, he encounters a character that reminds him of himself. He feels a need to perhaps connect with [Devon], but he doesn\u2019t really understand what that is. He wasn\u2019t trained to understand what that is. [Maul] is a character who has social needs like you and me but has none of the social training, not even a concept of what it is to be kind to someone. He\u2019s a character who has a lot of internal drama inside him, a lot of conflict, and a lot of tension with Devon.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for as intrigued as Maul is by Devon, audiences can expect anything but a typical master-apprentice relationship between the duo.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, you can say \u2018pawn,’\u201d Witwer laughed when asked about Maul\u2019s view of Devon. \u201cAgain, I think that Maul was confused as to what she could or could not be. Certainly though, he understands that in order to combat the Empire, he does need people with extraordinary talent and ability. And for that reason, boy, he could sure use a Jedi or two out there\u2014and note that I used the word \u2018use\u2019; he could sure use a Jedi or two in combating the Empire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is a really interesting place for him to be, because he was taught by the Emperor to hate them with no compromises, and now he\u2019s questioning everything the Emperor ever told him,\u201d Witwer continued. \u201cWhere he lands morally on the spectrum is still a very dangerous place because everything he knew he learned from the Emperor. He does not live in a world where you can have friendships or trust; he does not live in a world where you can stop and reflect and think\u2014there\u2019s no time for that; you\u2019ll be killed. He\u2019s constantly in a state of fight or flight; he\u2019s constantly in a high-cortisol-intense chase through the galaxy. But he\u2019s also very, very smart, very clever, and has a lot of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Star\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

It\u2019s in this headspace of different pushes and pulls of desires\u2014carving his own path, defeating his master, and using, potentially even corrupting, this young child\u2014that Witwer finds new ground to play with in a character he\u2019s now seen the ins and outs of for the best part of two decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re doing a show like Clone Wars or Rebels, you\u2019re not the point-of-view character, so you can\u2019t really indulge in a lot of those things\u2014you can hint at them for sure, but you can\u2019t really take the time to really explore,\u201d Witwer mused. \u201cShadow Lord gives us the luxury of doing just that with this character, which is a tricky thing to do in a Star Wars show, because Star Wars, I firmly believe, is a very moral mythology. And I don\u2019t think any of us had a taste to do a show where a guy is just going around hurting people\u2014you know, that\u2019s just a little bit of a bummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a conflicted character, surrounded by a variety of characters across the entire moral spectrum, including some characters who are very, very good\u2014boy, that is an interesting show, if you can pull that off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time will tell if that\u2019s the case, but if there\u2019s anyone in this galaxy ready for it, it\u2019s Witwer. \u201cHopefully people feel like we\u2019ve pulled that off,\u201d the actor concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s been a real challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maul: Shadow Lord begins streaming on Disney+ April 6.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lots of Star Wars characters come back from the seemingly certain grave for a lot of reasons, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,202408,206,224367,5295],"class_list":{"0":"post-559095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-maul-shadow-lord","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sam-witwer","12":"tag-star-wars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}