Playing a Mandalorian on Disney+’s The Mandalorian requires an actor of a certain fortitude. They have to have the confidence, the stance, the swagger — and also the stamina to perform under any condition while wearing a big bucket on your head. And while most of the performers in Mandalorian armor get to take the helmet off every now and then, the Armorer enjoys no such luxury.
Even though we’ve never seen the Armorer’s face or even learned her name, she’s become a fixture of Disney+’s Star Wars series. In addition to being one of the very few characters to appear in not only multiple episodes of The Mandalorian but also multiple seasons, she’s part of the elite club of characters who popped up in both Mando and The Book of Boba Fett.
But who is the Armorer and, after all these years, isn’t it time you finally learn who’s underneath that helmet? Here’s everything you need to know about the Armorer and Emily Swallow.
Introduced in the series premiere of The Mandalorian, the Armorer is a Mandalorian (the helmet gives it away) who was initially part of Din Djarin’s tribe. She resided on the planet Nevarro in a covert, which is essentially a hideout/headquarters. Like Din Djarin, the Armorer and the rest of the Tribe are all members of the Children of the Watch and practitioners of the group’s religion. That’s where the whole “don’t take off your helmet” and “this is the way” stuff comes from. As the armorer, the Armorer forges all of her people’s armor and weapons from beskar steel. That includes a new set of armor for Din Djarin early in Season 1 as well as a beskar spear and, as seen in The Book of Boba Fett, a little chainmail shirt for Grogu.
Not much is known about the Armorer, at least to us outsiders. We don’t even know her name. It’s clear that she’s a Mandalorian of great influence, as she helped the Tribe re-form on a distant space station (seen in Book of Boba Fett) after the Nevarro covert’s destruction in the Mandalorian Season 1 finale. At the start of The Mandalorian Season 3, we see her forging armor for a new follower of the Children of the Watch at the Tribe’s new covert (location: unrevealed).
The Armorer is played by Emily Swallow — who, by the way, is not British. She was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Virginia. While she’s no stranger to voice work, like voicing Lisa Tepes on Netflix’s Castlevania, she has appeared on plenty of shows where she does not wear a helmet. For instance, she played Natalie Pierce on SEAL Team, Amara on Supernatural, Kim Fischer on The Mentalist, Dina Clarke on Southland.
Fun fact: Emily Swallow actually voiced and provided the motion capture performance for the character Emily in the video game The Last of Us Part II. Pedro Pascal is the star of the Last of Us TV adaptation.
As for whether or not we’ll ever see the Armorer’s real face on The Mandalorian — it’s gonna take something major to get that helmet off. Of all the Children of the Watch, the Armorer seems to be the most adherent to the old ways. Only time will tell where her storyline goes.
New episodes of The Mandalorian Season 3 premiere on Wednesdays on Disney+.