‘Boba Fett’ Star Temuera Morrison Met Jon Favreau On ‘Couples Retreat’
What does totally awesome Disney+ Star Wars show The Book of Boba Fett have in common with 2009 rom-com Couples Retreat? Two names: one of the film’s co-stars is Jon Favreau. The cast also included New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison. Favreau had made a pretty big impact by then: he had been in the cast of a number of cool films, including 1996’s Swingers, 1998’s Very Bad Things and he played “Happy” Hogan for the first of many times in 2008’s Iron Man; he also directed Iron Man.
Morrison, meanwhile, was well known in New Zealand, where he’d been acting in films since 1972. He made a big impact here by playing Jango Fett in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He had a small role in Couples Retreat… as the assistant to the guy who ran the resort. And they even mispelled his name in the credits (“Temeura” instead of Temuera). But it still turned out to be a fortunate experience for the actor, even though it didn’t pay off for more than a decade.
“Sometimes, life is about relationships,” Morrison told The Hollywood Reporter. “While I didn’t get to do much on Couples Retreat, I got to meet Jon. And at that time, he was prepping to direct Iron Man,” Morrison recalls.
Favreau directed the first two Iron Man films (and has played “Happy” in Iron Man 3, Avengers: Endgame and all three Spider-Man films since then) but he has moved on to being the showrunner for Disney+/ Star Wars show The Mandalorian, where he cast Morrison as Boba Fett. “He obviously sat around a table where they said, ‘Well, Boba’s got to look like Jango [Fett], so let’s see what Tem is doing.’ So I had this wonderful opportunity to get back on this journey, this vessel, this walker, and it’s been exciting and thrilling.” After delighting fans as Fett (who fans thought had died in Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi) in The Mandalorian, he now has his own spin-off via The Book Of Boba Fett, which is also overseen by Favreau.
