How I Got the Part of Hondo Ohnaka in Star Wars Outlaws - And Why the Casting Mattered More Than the Job

A Collective Intent Case Study by Pascal Langdale

The Casting

The casting was like any other video game audition. Two scenes and a note: "Feel free to use the environment."

The part was for Hondo Ohnaka, a much-loved Star Wars character already established in the animated series Clone Wars. Fans knew him. They knew his voice, his swagger, his particular brand of pirate charm. It had to be done right.

There was a problem.

Hondo is voiced by Jim Cummings, a well-known and celebrated actor. Jim and the writers had formed Hondo's character, but it was the animators who had defined his physicality. Jim was not a motion capture actor. Ubisoft needed someone who could physically become the 3D, subjectively acted Hondo that had only ever been a 2D, objectively created character.

That's a specific ask. You're not creating something from scratch. You're stepping into the legacy of a family of creative animators and writers, a character already loved by fans and making it live in three dimensions - in a body, in a space, in real time.

Ubisoft put out the call.

What I Actually Did

Whenever I take any casting, my goal is to be free enough to play and improvise within the physical, psychological and emotional guardrails I've established through process and iteration.

When there's a specific physicality - for instance being the physical body of another actor who couldn't make the shoots for Far Cry 6 - I gather as much information as I can about their physicality. I use categorizations drawn from nonverbal behaviour study, and the how is mediated by Laban movement categorisation.

To physically transform and still be in the moment as another being, the words have to be absolutely automatic. As Mocap Vaults founder Oliver Hollis-Leick said - "The words bubble on top." This phrase, together with my own axiom "Every second is a chance to tell the story," are the foundations on which I build all my work.

So I learned the scripts in a monotone, avoiding any premature choices, and then I worked on the physicality.

Then it was time to record. One scene: fixed camera, the usual backdrop. The second scene: I got my partner to film me in the kitchen as I addressed people "off screen," allowing me to turn and walk so that I could also show I had Hondo's walk.

And because I had done all the work, I added something extra.

The Shakespeare Gamble

I played Hondo Ohnaka performing a speech from Two Gentlemen of Verona as if he was in a bar.

I made it clear in the submission that it was a bonus … a choice, not part of the brief.

Why? Honestly? Because it was so much fun.

Remember that? How acting can be fun?

The Result

That gamble could have gone either way. As it happened, it was in keeping with the attitude of Hondo, and it was appreciated. But that wasn’t the main win.

The biggest win was enjoying the casting.

If it had ended there, if I'd never heard back, I would still have felt I had benefited, enjoyed, and grown. The delight of actually doing the job on Star Wars Outlaws was the industry benefiting from all the time, effort and training I've put into my acting. That I got the part was a great result, but not the result. Enjoying being an actor was the result.

I later got feedback from the team about my casting. In fact, they brought it up themselves, saying it was by far the best they received and that the extra Shakespeare bit was so much fun. One of the animators who worked on Clone wars was impressed with how I’d captured their character. I 've reached a point in my career where I know that kind of feedback is rare, and to accept it with grace is to honour all the other highly skilled actors who submitted - and all the times I was the one who didn't get the job.

What This Has to Do With You

I teach the skills I've developed and found most useful in my career in all media. Techniques that get me out of my head and into embodied spontaneity. The physicality work, and deep motivation work that makes words automatic so you can actually play. The process that made that casting submissions that you can be proud of regardless of whether you get the job.

I now believe this “liveness” is the superpower that AI cannot synthesise, which makes it all the more important to teach to the next generation. Until AI can be physically in the same room as you, mortal, with an idiosyncratic blend of old brain, genetic script, and personal learned experience - acting is safe.

But ironically that means it is more important than ever for actors to become more human.

To find out when my next classes are scheduled, to apply to audit, or just to put yourself on the waitlist, head over to collectiveintent.net