Gina Carano May Call Some Big Names When She Sues Disney, Including Pedro Pascal and Jon Favreau

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Now that her lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm can go forward, Gina Carano and her legal team are preparing to call witnesses to testify on her behalf, and unsurprisingly, they’ve got some big names on the docket, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, of course, is on there, as is Lynne Hale, a publicist who’s worked at Lucasfilm for thirty years and is credited with bringing Star Wars back into the zeitgeist beginning with the special editions of the original trilogy. Jon Favreau, the co-creator of The Mandalorian and the writer and director of its upcoming movie spin-off/sequel/whatever The Mandalorian and Grogu, is also on the witness list, as is Pedro Pascal, who plays the titular character on The Mandalorian. Bob Chapek, the former CEO of Disney until the palace coup that reinstalled Bob Iger, could be called as well. And the final name is a bit of a surprise: Bear Grylls, a survival expert and host of several reality shows based on the subject.

The reasons for calling some of these witnesses are obvious. We know why Kathleen Kennedy would be asked to testify; she’s widely assumed to be the driving force behind Gina Carano’s firing, and she’s the president of Lucasfilm, so she knows as much as or more than anyone about the business end of these shenanigans. There’s also the matter of Lucasfilm’s statement accusing Carano of “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities,” which is the opposite of what she was doing. Additionally, Carano has made other claims about Kennedy, such as that she tried to subject her to a Zoom call/humiliation ritual with a bunch of trans people over Carano’s use of “beep, bop, boop,” as her pronouns in her then-Twitter-now-X bio. I’m sure all of these things will come up during the trial. Bob Chapek has spoken more generally about her firing, but has said that Carano was not on a list of conservatives Disney wanted to fire and that Disney is not “left-leaning or right-leaning.” (If you believe that, I’d like to sell you the Eiffel Tower.) I don’t know if that’s specifically what Carano and her lawyers want him to testify about, but I would guess it’s at least part of it. Carano’s legal team is also arguing that she was under contract when she was fired, something Kennedy and Chapek can both testify about, whether they say she was or wasn’t.

Jon Favreau and Lynne Hale are probably on the list so they can talk about Rangers of the New Republic, the Star Wars TV series for Disney+ Favreau was developing that was to star Carano as her Mandalorian character, Cara Dune. The Hollywood Reporter suspects that Favreau will be asked whether Rangers of the New Republic was officially greenlit, which would mean Carano lost out on a huge career opportunity and the money that would have come with starring in a Disney Star Wars series because she was fired. Lynne Hale could also be asked to give testimony about this; as a marketing executive, she’d likely know about any marketing material being drawn up for Rangers of the New Republic. This is all guesswork on my part (don’t take legal advice from me if I’m ever drunk enough to give it; the extent of my knowledge is that shouting out “Denny Crane!” usually wins a case), but Rangers of the New Republic had a logo; I wonder if there was unreleased marketing material that featured Gina Carano as Cara Dune. If so, that would likely bolster her case quite a bit. Pedro Pascal, meanwhile, will almost assuredly be asked if Disney and Lucasfilm ever pressured him over his political statements, which were much more forceful and divisive than Carano’s. He may also be able to testify about Rangers of the New Republic or any planned future for Carano on The Mandalorian, but again, I’m just guessing.

Bear Grylls seemed strange at first – mostly because I had no idea who he was and had to look him up – but apparently, Gina Carano guest starred on an episode of one of his shows, Running Wild With Bear Grylls, which is owned by National Geographic, meaning it’s now owned by Disney. After Carano was fired, her episode of Running Wild With Bear Grylls was shelved, although it eventually aired and got huge ratings.

It’s important to keep in mind that these are all potential witnesses; there’s no guarantee that any of them will be called to testify, although I think a few of them are safe bets. Disney, meanwhile, says they may call Carrie Beck, the vice president of animation and live-action development at Lucasfilm, and Paul Roeder, the executive vice president of communications at Disney. The Hollywood Reporter has the court filing embedded in the article, and it reveals more details, such as that the trial is anticipated to take a week, with a proposed start date of September 29, 2025, and that Carano’s team plans to call “approximately 10 to 15 witnesses,” which could change, while Disney will call “approximately five witnesses.” Some of the evidence Carano and her lawyers will introduce includes social media posts from Gina Carano, Pedro Pascal, and Mark Hamill (which explains her post from two weeks ago), documents that show plans for Carano to appear in shows and movies beyond Rangers of the New Republic, and documents detailing what pay she would have gotten for them. The last part is interesting because the filing says that Carano is seeking damages based on the loss of her employment at Disney, as well as that she was an employee under contract when Disney fired her, which Disney disputes. If they have documents saying how much they were going to pay her… that’s probably bad for them.

Again, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV, so I have no idea how this will shake out. But the next year and change are going to be fascinating from a spectator’s point of view. And, if it hasn’t been clear, I’m rooting for Gina Carano.