This Is The Actress Who Plays The Frog Lady On The Mandalorian
Disney/Lucasfilm
By Dany Roth/Nov. 13, 2020 7:28 pm EST
One of the weirdest (and coolest) things about the Star Wars franchise is the way even the smallest characters somehow find purchase in the minds of nerds everywhere. You can effectively pick any random background performer/monster/droid in any scene throughout the Star Wars canon, and there's probably a Kenner figure of it.
The Mandalorian is no exception to the Star Wars rule. Recently, a character who barely appeared at all has since returned in the series' second season to the kind of acclaim that would shock anyone outside of the Star Wars fandom. But those of us who giggle like Salacious Crumb at the mere thought of the Expanded Universe were unsurprised that the space-equivalent of a frog suddenly became an impassioned favorite.
Frog Lady (she doesn't even have a name... yet) first appeared last year in "Chapter 5: The Gunslinger," but it's her return in Chapters 10 and 11 that made her (and her eggs) so overwhelmingly popular. After helping Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) land his ship (right in the water, unfortunately) and helping care for the Child, people are talking about Frog Lady so much she'll probably get her own spin-off novel, 12-part comic series, and sippy cup by next year.
But did you know that stunt performer Misty Rosas, who plays Frog Lady, has already appeared in The Mandalorian before? Not only that, you've probably seen her outside of Star Wars, too.
Misty Rosas is the body, Nick Nolte is the voice
Last season, you may recall there were quite a number of memorable alien characters on The Mandalorian. One of the biggest favorites is Kuiil, a male Ugnaught Mando meets in the very first chapter.
Kuiil is a former indentured servant of the Galactic Empire. He resides on the desert planet Arvala-7 as a moisture farmer, spending his days tinkering with machines and training blurrgs. Kuill helps the Mandalorian in a number of ways, including teaching him how to ride those unruly blurrgs and reprogramming assassin droid IG-11 (Taika Waititi).
For audiences, Kuiil might be defined by the famous actor who provided his voice, Nick Nolte. But what you might not have realized is that, in addition to being an very convincing fish person, Misty Rosas was also the actor behind Kuiil's makeup. So if you were wondering who was responsible for all the physical traits that make Kuiil such a delightful and endearing character, Misty Rosas is the one to thank.
Misty Rosas' first big role is one you probably remember
There are a lot of places you might have seen Misty Rosas, but we've got to talk about her first acting credit because it's a relatively famous one.
Back in the '90s, the writings of author Michael Crichton were getting adapted left and right. After the success of Jurassic Park in 1993, Rising Sun and Disclosure were rushed to the screen. In 1995, Crichton's novel Congo got the blockbuster treatment. A lot of people remember this movie because it kills off beloved B-movie icon Bruce Campbell in the first ten minutes. Some people remember it because it features Tim Curry being scolded for eating sesame cake.
Arguably, though, the most memorable part of Congo isn't a meme or a cameo, but a specific performance — Misty Rosas as Amy the gorilla. The success or failure of any movie involving an animal who can communicate with humans falls to the performance of said animal. And long before Andy Serkis threw on a MoCap suit to play Caesar in the 21st century Planet of the Apes trilogy, Rosas (and Lorene Noh) spent six months of intense training to learn the movements of gorillas.
Obviously, there's a huge amount of work that went into creating the gorilla suits and the animatronic faces of Amy, but none of that would have believability without an actor who can wear all that stuff and embody a non-human being in a decidedly human way.
In addition to these well-known performances, Rosas has served on stunt teams for The Hunger Games, Van Helsing, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's holiday classic Jingle All the Way.
Whether or not we see Frog Lady on The Mandalorian again after Chapter 11 is unknown, but that she will eventually get a real name, an action figure, and a comic book is, like with so many Star Wars creatures, inevitable.