Werner Herzog Says The Mandalorian Is ‘Cinema Back At Its Best’

Werner Herzog has some high praise for The Mandalorian, which he appears in, calling it “cinema back at its best.” The auteur filmmaker, who plays The Client in the Disney+ series, spoke at a screening of the pilot in Hollywood and talked about being brought in by Jon Favreau as well as his experience filming the role.

“When you invited me, I knew in less than 60 seconds that this was going to be big,” Herzog told Favreau (per Deadline). “I saw the universe. I saw costumes. I saw the round horizon. I saw the spacecraft. I saw an entire universe. And I knew this was really big.”

Herzog has previously said that he’d never seen a Star Wars film and still hasn’t despite taking a role in the show. He noted at the panel, “Secondly, when Jon described a little bit about the character — yes, it’s a dark, dark sort of figure that shouldn’t be trusted at all — I knew it was going to be easy.”

Talking about the experience filming the show, Herzog — best known for such films as Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Grizzly Man, said, “I enjoyed every single moment of it. And I think it’s beyond what we are seeing on the screen. It’s cinema back at its best. On the big fantasy films, actors were acting almost like robots in front of green screens, you didn’t see the world that you were inhabiting. Now [with The Mandalorian] the actors see the entire universe in which they are operating and the camera does the same. The camera sees it as well so cinema is back to its very life, where it had been. And it becomes very, very Iivey it’s not robotic. It’s got very, very intense life in it.”