title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The Mandalorian seldom speaks, and when he does he reveals little information beyond what is necessary. Pedro Pascal, the actor who portrays the Mandalorian, said he attempts to make the character human and accessible, despite the fact that his face is concealed by a mask. He said of this: "The idea is, he's relatable. We're all kind of covered in our own armor and terrified of taking that armor off, and that's the thing that crosses him over into a character that we're really going to want to follow." "The Atlantic" writer Spencer Kornhaber said the Mandalorian is one of many characters in the "Star Wars" franchise who wear masks because masks are "the means by which people try to attain the perfection, and indifference, of machines". Kornhaber said when the Mandalorian's helmet is finally removed for the first time, it is not presented as a major epiphany or the reveal of a secret identity, but rather "a reminder that this laconic space cowboy/knight is just some guy".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The character takes Mandalorian traditions very seriously, and has tremendous respect and gratitude for the Mandalorian culture due to his upbringing, which he reflects by providing money from his bounties to support other foundlings. His parents' deaths at the hands of battle droids also left him with a strong hatred of droids in general.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Pascal believes the Mandalorian is more morally ambiguous than other "Star Wars" protagonists, describing him as a "dark hero". He said: "I think the moral universe of "Star Wars" can be very specific and kind of black and white, there's good and there's evil, and in this one we start to play with the boundaries of that more, and that is dealt with very interestingly with this character. He's not your typical hero." Ultimately, Pascal believes the Mandalorian wants to do the right thing, but that his duties as a bounty hunter and warrior often conflict with that. Carl Weathers said of the character: "The Mandalorian is, I think, in some ways like every other character in "The Mandalorian". There is something about him that's very selfish and self-centered but there's also something about him that's very altruistic and human. There's a humanity to him." At the beginning of the series in particular, the Mandalorian has a cold personality, ignoring the pleas of the people he hunted and captured. The fact that the Mandalorian used to work with Ran Malk's crew of mercenaries before the events of "The Mandalorian" shows he had even fewer morals before the series began. This is further illustrated in "Chapter 6: The Prisoner", when one of those mercenaries, Xi'an, alludes to violent acts the Mandalorian committed on the planet Alzoc III, something the Mandalorian is reluctant to discuss. However, the introduction of the Child in "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian" serves to humanize and moralize the Mandalorian. "The Mandalorian" creator Jon Favreau and Deborah Chow, one of the directors on "The Mandalorian", felt the scene in "Chapter 3: The Sin" when the Mandalorian decided to go back to the Child was a pivotal moment for the character. Chow said: "That's the point of no return, once he makes that decision. Right there, he's changing his entire life." The Mandalorian's growth in morality is demonstrated in "Chapter 6" when he attempts to intervene to save the life of New Republic soldier Davan (Matt Lanter) during a prison break, even though it would be more convenient to kill him. Also in that episode, the Mandalorian imprisons rather than kills his fellow mercenaries after they betray him, which further demonstrates his moral conscience.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The Mandalorian character was created by Jon Favreau, the creator and showrunner of "The Mandalorian". Favreau is a long-time "Star Wars" fan, and the Mandalorians are one of his favorite groups of characters from the franchise; he previously voiced one of them in the animated series "". The title character of Favreau's series is considered the first live-action depiction of a Mandalorian, the concept of which was never used in the films, although the Mandalorian culture has been expanded upon in other "Star Wars" works like "The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels". Boba Fett has been associated with the Mandalorians in "Star Wars" books and other media, but that detail was never featured in the films. Favreau said in creating the Mandalorian character, he attempted to match the look and aesthetics of the original "Star Wars" trilogy, particularly the first film, "Star Wars" (1977). Several Lucasfilm artists created concept art for the character during development of the series, including Christan Alzmann, Doug Chiang, Ryan Church, Nick Gindraux, Jama Jurabaev, and John Park.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The character was partially inspired by Clint Eastwood, particularly his Man with No Name character in Spaghetti Western films directed by Sergio Leone. Pascal said any time he had a question or doubt about how his character would physically act or move, he would ask himself: "What would Clint do?" The Mandalorian was also inspired by samurai characters in the films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Pascal said of the Kurosawa influence: "It's aesthetically and very, very much narratively built in that kind of iconic lone gunslinger/sword-wielder." Favreau suggested Pascal watch Kurosawa's samurai films and Leone's westerns starring Eastwood as preparation for the role, and Pascal watched such specific films as "Yojimbo" (1961) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). Han Solo, of the main characters from the "Star Wars" franchise, also served as an influence for Pascal's performance.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The Mandalorian character was first publicly described in a brief three-sentence synopsis about the series that Favreau posted on his Instagram account on October 3, 2018. It described the character as "a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic". Favreau later said: "This is a character you've never met before in a period of time you've never seen." The first image of the Mandalorian was released on October 4, 2018. The gender and other details about the character were not immediately revealed. Based upon the released photo, Germain Lussier of "Gizmodo" described the character as "an imposing, confident presence, with a great mix of Mandalorian armor and personal, functional additions". "The Mandalorian" executive producer Dave Filoni called the Mandalorian a "survivor" just trying to make a living and "find his way on a day-to-day basis", which he felt was unique from other protagonists in the "Star Wars" franchise, particular the Jedi. Since the real name and face of the Mandalorian were not initially revealed, many speculated his true identity would be a character already known in the "Star Wars" franchise. Some speculated it would be Boba Fett himself, but Lucasfilm denied this, and the show's creators differentiated between the two characters in interviews.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Footage of the Mandalorian was first publicly unveiled at the "Star Wars" Celebration convention in Chicago on April 14, 2019, which included scenes of him receiving bounty hunting assignments from Greef Karga and the Client in the premiere episode. The character was also featured prominently in the first official trailer for "The Mandalorian", released on August 23, 2019, and in the second "Mandalorian" trailer, released on October 28, 2019. A character poster solely featuring the Mandalorian was also released that day.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The Mandalorian is primarily portrayed by Pedro Pascal, who wears the armor in many scenes and provides all of the voice acting for the character. He was one of several actors considered for the role. Favreau reached out to Pascal through his agent to discuss a "Star Wars" project; Pascal did not initially know whether it was a film, series, or some other type of work, but he wanted to meet Favreau regardless of the nature of the project. They met in Favreau's office, which was covered with concept illustrations from the series, and as Favreau described the project he pointed to an illustration of the Mandalorian to show Pascal the character he would portray. This led Pascal to initially believe the character was Boba Fett, but he was corrected by Favreau. Pascal tried on the Mandalorian's helmet during their first meeting and it fit perfectly, which he called a "big geek-out moment". Pascal's long-time friend Oscar Isaac, who portrayed Poe Dameron in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, urged Pascal to accept the role, and Pascal said the actor's encouragement made him feel more certain about joining the project.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Pascal was a fan of "Star Wars" as a child, especially the film "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), which he described as "indelibly marked in my memory and my childhood imagination". He was also a fan of Boba Fett in particular, which was his favorite "Star Wars" action figure as a child. Pascal said this made him all the more excited to be portraying a similar-looking character, saying: "They want me to be the coolest looking thing in "Star Wars"."


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Production had begun in late 2018 and was underway for several weeks before the lead actor to play the Mandalorian was selected. Scenes featuring the character were shot with body doubles, and publicity stills of the character on the set were released before an actor was selected. Rumors of Pascal's possible casting began to emerge on the Internet in October 2018. On November 13, 2018, "Variety" reported that Pascal was offered the lead role and that negotiations were underway. His casting was formally announced on December 12, 2018. Germain Lussier of "Gizmodo" said of Pascal's casting: "Pascal is an excellent actor with a unique presence and we're all for him hunting down and shooting people all across the galaxy." Pascal mistakenly revealed the Mandalorian's real name, Din Djarin, during a November 2019 interview.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: In addition to Pascal, actor Brendan Wayne and stunt performer Lateef Crowder served as body doubles for the Mandalorian and perform as the character when Pascal was unavailable. Wayne previously appeared in the film "Cowboys & Aliens" (2011), which was directed by Favreau, after which they kept in touch. Through his agent, Wayne was asked to try on a costume at Legacy Effects for a secretive project, without any knowledge that it was "Star Wars"-related. Once he saw the costume, he mistakenly believed it was Boba Fett. The costume fit, even though it was designed for someone 6 feet 5 inches, and he is only six feet tall. Wayne said of the costume: "Just the fact that I got to put it on was enough, because it meant that much to me as part of my childhood." Two weeks later he was asked to do a screen test for a Favreau project. It did not include a script because the casting associates just wanted to see him move around. Suspecting it was related to the "Star Wars" costume he had tried on, Wayne purchased a Boba Fett helmet and motorcycle pad and practiced walking with them beforehand. In the screen test, he was asked to portray "a very Western kind of feel", so he walked slowly, focused on holding the strength of his core, and adapted a walk similar to that of his grandfather, the actor John Wayne.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Wayne's agent informed him he would not be providing the character's voice, which he did not mind. Wayne said Favreau taught him about how to keep his head movements very subtle because they appear much more exaggerated when masked. Wayne provided feedback and advice about the costume, including where the gun holsters were positioned to give the character the greatest ease of access. Wayne worked on every first-season episode of "The Mandalorian", and he worked closely with Pascal to develop the character's on-screen movements, with each asking the other how they would handle certain movements and gestures, to ensure the character was seamless no matter who played him. Wayne said of working on "The Mandalorian": "It was a dream to work on this because I was able to live what brought me to acting every day. ... To be part of the mythology that you grew up with that was integral to you as a kid—it was really cool."


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Child actor Aidan Bertola portrayed a young version of the Mandalorian in flashback scenes throughout the first season of "The Mandalorian".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The Mandalorian's costume was designed by concept artist Brian Matyas and costume designer Joseph Porro. and was created by Legacy Effects, the special effects studio started by protégés of special make-up effects creator Stan Winston. It was heavily influenced by the Boba Fett suit featured in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi", and includes a similar set of body armor and a helmet with a distinctive T-shaped visor. The costume includes gauntlet-like wrist armor on its right arm, and a wrist device for firing projectiles on the left arm. It features gloves with differently-colored fingertips and a metal piece on the hand with a blue triangle facing the fingers. The costume also includes a belt with explosive charges on it, a blaster with a long barrel, boots, and holsters on the right leg that store ammunition, explosives, and a knife. The first version of the costume was featured in the first three episodes of "The Mandalorian" included a great deal of wear and battle damage, before it is rebuilt by the Armorer.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The filmmakers deliberately sought to create subtle visual differences between the costumes of Mandalorian and Boba Fett to help differentiate the two characters. As a result, the Mandalorian's costume is a different color than Boba Fett's, the armor and helmet have different accents and subtle touches, and the Mandalorian appears more muscular than Boba Fett. Nevertheless, Dave Filoni has acknowledged "there are similarities, which are almost unavoidable". Pedro Pascal compared the Mandalorian's armor to that of Knights from the Middle Ages, describing its aesthetic as "extremely powerful and mysterious". Pascal also said of the costume: "He's such an incredible silhouette. It's such an iconic image." However, he also said the costume could be difficult to work with, and that he often bumped into things during filming until he got used to it. He said: "Nothing that looks that good is going to be easy to wear." Describing the language of the Mandalorian as "strictly physical", Pascal said he had to learn how to navigate the costume pieces to convey the character and tell his story.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Jessie Atkin of "Screen Rant" said of the costume: "We might think we've seen Mandalorian armor before, whether on Boba Fett or Sabine Wren, but watching the Armorer make Mando's outfit seems to bring his whole look to a whole different level." The costume was on display at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, California in August 2019.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Many of the scenes for "The Mandalorian" were filmed on a sound stage in Southern California on a "Volume", a large warehouse-like motion-capture stage with green screens and tracking cameras spread throughout the space. Using a combination of physical set pieces and images projected onto the screens, the Volume allows the actors to be filmed and placed into a digital environment. The Mandalorian's scenes on an icy planet at the beginning of "Chapter 1: The Mandalorian" were filmed in this setting, as were scenes on the planet Arvala-7 in the first two episodes of the first season, and the scenes on Ran Malk's space station in "Chapter 6: The Prisoner", to name a few. Pedro Pascal said of the filming process: "This is taking it to the next level for me in terms of the world-building and the attention to detail on the costumes, the creatures, the robots, the entire world. It feels sometimes like not too much is left to the imagination in terms of what's there."


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The use of this filming technology, rather than a traditional green screen backdrop, allowed the "Mandalorian" filmmakers to avoid challenges that would be associated with the reflection of the green screen against the Mandalorian's reflective helmet and armor costume. Imagery was projected onto 360-degree LED walls, which not only provided photorealistic sets for the actors to perform against, but also allowed the reflections that appeared on the Mandalorian's costume to reflect the setting around him as if it were a real-world location. Cinematographer Greig Fraser said: "When you're dealing with a reflective subject like the Mandalorian, the world outside the camera frame is often more important than the world you see in the camera's field of view. What's behind the camera is reflected in the actor's helmet and costume, and that's crucial to selling the illusion that he's in that environment." A long, narrow band of white near the top of the LED wall served an additional purpose of providing a backlight look on the Mandalorian's helmet. The filmmakers would also occasionally request additional lighting be projected onto the wall of the set, so that it would reflect onto the Mandalorian's costume and provide additional definition to the character's shape. Fraser said filming the chrome helmet of the Mandalorian in particular is a challenge because its sharp edges can "quickly look video-like" if the lens on the camera is too sharp. This problem was resolved via the use of full-frame Ultra Vista anamorphic lenses by Panavision that were modified to provide a softer sharpness. These lenses were too soft for human faces, so different filming techniques were used on unmasked characters than those used for the Mandalorian.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Upon first accepting the role, Pascal thought the large amount of enthusiasm among "Star Wars" fans would prove intimidating, but he later said it ultimately supported his performance: "As a cast member, to have that kind of support to life you into it, is such an essential component—more so than anything I've done before." Pascal felt Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni shielded him and the rest of the cast and crew from the pressures that might otherwise have been associated with filming the first live-action "Star Wars" series and one of the first shows for the Disney+ streaming service, instead creating an environment where they could focus on the work. Favreau felt the Mandalorian character worked well and was very engaging despite not being seen behind the costume, noting that many beloved "Star Wars" characters lack anthropomorphism, citing R2-D2 as an example. Gina Carano said Pascal tries to convey his own doubts and vulnerabilities as an actor through his performances, which she felt ultimately makes the Mandalorian more relatable. She said: "You want to know who is this guy underneath here. You can feel his personality, you want to know more about him. He's so sexy." Favreau paid close attention to minor details about the Mandalorian character, including one instance in which he felt the Mandalorian's boots did not have the appropriate level of frost on them for scenes on an icy planet, so he had them modified to include more frost.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Pascal said because the character speaks so seldom, he had to recall his acting school lessons to convey the character's emotions simply with "posture and gesture". Pascal called this a very detail-oriented process, noting that small gestures had a large emotive impact, requiring vigilance about each subtle movement. Pascal said his past stage acting experience also helped with this, including his performances in works of commedia dell'arte, in which he wore masks and delivered performances in animated and exaggerated ways to convey emotions. He said portraying the Mandalorian was similar, but "in the opposite tone of economical movements". Deborah Chow said physicality was extremely important in working with the character, and that they needed to develop a physical language for the Mandalorian: "All his movement is intentional. There's no fidgeting or relaxing, so that any time, even if he makes a small move or turns his head, it becomes meaningful. We couldn't do it with his face or with his eyes." Much of that physicality was dictated by the costume itself and the weight distribution necessary to move in it. Brendan Wayne said the type of walk they wanted for the Mandalorian came naturally to him, so much so that when Pascal struggled with it, the filmmakers would suggest he seek Wayne's input. Pascal tried to match his vocal performance to the body language, and his recordings were often tweaked in post-production to achieve this.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Pascal was working on multiple projects at the same time as "The Mandalorian", so he did not appear in every episode. He was not present for the filming of "Chapter 4: Sanctuary" at all because he was in rehearsals for a production of "King Lear" on Broadway. Instead, Wayne performed the majority of the character's scenes in that episode. Director Bryce Dallas Howard said of Wayne: "He absolutely just brought everything to that character, and we were able to find the moments and figure them out together." Wayne said that episode's scenes with Julia Jones, the actress who played Omera, were so emotional that he cried underneath the helmet. Wayne also wore the costume for portions of "Chapter 3: The Sin", including the scene when he entered the "Razor Crest" and was jumped by Greef Karga from behind. Wayne idolizes Weathers so he enjoyed filming the scenes with him. Wayne recited the Mandalorian's lines while shooting the scenes, to be replaced with Pascal's vocal performances later, and Weathers said Wayne's delivery was very similar to that of his grandfather John Wayne. Wayne also said the animatronic puppet used to create the Child character was so realistic that it felt like working with an actual child actor.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Pascal and Emily Swallow knew each other prior to filming "The Mandalorian". They were familiar with each other through the New York theatre scene, and both appeared on the show "The Mentalist" at the same time. When she first learned about "The Mandalorian", Swallow believed it would be challenging to present a protagonist who viewers never actually saw, but she believed Pascal could do it because "I sort of knew just based on who Pedro is that his goodness would come across".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: One of the primary themes of "The Mandalorian" is parenting and fatherhood, expressed through the father-son relationship dynamic between the Mandalorian and the Child. Ryan Britt of "Fatherly" wrote: "For years the "Star Wars" franchise avoided depicting a parent-child dynamic. With Mando and The Child, that's finally changing." Several reviewers have compared the dynamic between the Child and the Mandalorian to "Lone Wolf and Cub", a manga about a samurai warrior and his young son. The Child makes the Mandalorian a softer and more relatable character; he changes in a positive way because of raising the Child, becoming less selfish and self-absorbed. Several examples of the Mandalorian parenting the Child appear throughout the series, such as when he stops the Child from pressing random buttons in the cockpit of the Mandalorian's spaceship, ultimately by holding him in his lap. In another example, the Mandalorian sets up a car seat for the Child in the cockpit of the ship, so he can be seated safely and comfortably during their travels.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: The relationship between the Mandalorian and the Child is an example of unexpected fatherhood. The Mandalorian feels a connection and parental bond with the Child because of his own childhood, when he was orphaned by the deaths of his parents and was adopted by the Mandalorians as a "foundling". Nevertheless, fatherhood was not a role the Mandalorian was initially seeking, and he makes repeated early attempts to avoid this responsibility. He first does so in "Chapter 3: The Sin", when he leaves the Child with the Client, and then again in "Chapter 4" Sanctuary", when he plans to leave the Child with Omera, a protective mother on the planet Sorgan who is willing to take the Child into her own family. The Mandalorian does not fully commit to the role of fatherhood until the first-season finale, "Chapter 8: Redemption", when the Child himself is also adopted into the Mandalorian culture as a "foundling" and the Mandalorian is formally declared to be his father figure.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Anthony Breznican of "Vanity Fair" noted that none of the day-to-day difficulties of parenthood are portrayed in the series: "There is no shrill squawking from Baby Yoda, no tantrum, no spit-up, no uncontrollable shrieking that burrows into a parent's psyche like a dentist's drill shredding a soft, pink nerve." Likewise, "Vulture" writer Kathryn VanArendonk said the show ignores or does not address many parenting details that make fatherhood difficult, such as what the Child eats, when he goes him to sleep, and whether he wears diapers. She wrote: ""The Mandalorian" is uninterested in diapers, and so Mando gets to be a very particular image of fatherhood: the guy who doesn't have to sweat the small stuff." VanAnderonk described this as a wish fulfillment fantasy for parents or prospective parents: "a vision of parenting stripped so thoroughly of all detail and specificity that all that's left are archetypes: the parent, the child".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Gina Carano feels the Child brings a warmth to a series that acts as a counterbalance to the Mandalorian himself, who otherwise acts aloof and unemotional. Carano believes in this way, the Child "raises the emotional level and the stakes" of the series. Breznican echoed this sentiment: "There is an emotional transference happening here. The audience cares more about the unnamed, faceless Mandalorian because he cares so much about Baby Yoda." Despite his raw natural ability with the Force, the Child is untrained and still depends heavily on the assistance of the Mandalorian and other allies for protection. An interaction the Mandalorian has in "Chapter 5: The Gunslinger" with Peli Motto, a mechanic who briefly watches over the Child, is one of the most overt discussions about the challenges of parenthood. When the Mandalorian accidentally wakes the Child, who had been sleeping in Peli's arms, she chides him: "Do you have any idea how long it took me to get it to sleep?" She also condemns the Mandalorian for leaving the Child alone on the ship, saying: "You have an awful lot to learn about raising a young one".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: "ScreenCrush" writer Matt Singer argued the Mandalorian's parenting errors make the show more appealing and relatable because making mistakes is a large part of being a parent. Some moments in the series have led fans to reevaluate the Child and question whether he may demonstrate evil tendencies, such as when he uses the Force to choke Cara Dune while she is engaged in a friendly arm wrestling match with the Mandalorian in "Chapter 7: The Reckoning". Caitlin Gallagher of "Bustle" suggested rather than building toward the Child becoming evil, the show could be suggesting the Mandalorian needs to find a way to raise the Child in a less violent environment. It will largely fall to the Mandalorian to provide this guidance, as when the Mandalorian stops him from strangling Cara.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: "The Mandalorian" and Pedro Pascal's performance has garnered critical acclaim. Pascal said he has received positive direct feedback and responses from "Star Wars" fans, saying "this is the most invited into a family I have ever felt" about a role. "CinemaBlend" writer Sarah El-Mahmoud said the Mandalorian character was the most interesting aspect of the series for her, and that there was something "inherently brilliant" about him. She also praised the energy of Pascal's performance, saying he brings "the quiet lure and tension Clint Eastwood famously created in westerns like "A Fistful of Dollars"". Ethan Anderton of "/Film" said of the character: "The Mandalorian is truly a badass who blows Boba Fett out of the water." "Entertainment Weekly" writer James Hibberd called it bold to base a series upon a man in a mask, though he said Jon Favreau also accomplished this with the superhero protagonist of "Iron Man" (2008), which Favreau directed. Hibberd said with Pascal's vocal delivery and the show's impressive editing and camerawork, "Favreau manages to infuse the character with a surprising amount of personality". Many were glad to see Pedro Pascal as Djarin starring in "The Book of Boba Fett." "Polygon's" Matt Patches praised the character saying, "Pedro Pascal's Din Djarin... steps back to the spotlight, and acts like the Boba Fett fans fell in love with in the first place."


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Craig Elvy of "Screen Rant" wrote: "It's testament to "The Mandalorian"s creative team that a character who exposes so little in both literal and metaphorical terms can make such a strong connection with viewers." Kevin Pantoja of "Screen Rant" said the Mandalorian's origin character makes him empathetic, his action scenes are enjoyable, and the fatherhood role he accepts for the Child is his best characteristic. He described him as "the hero we root for from the start and there are plenty of reasons to have a connection to him". "Men's Health" writer Evan Romano said Pascal's "infectious charm" comes through in his performance, despite the helmet and the fact that many of his scenes are shared with a puppet. Sonia Saraiya of "Vanity Fair" called it a testament to Pascal's acting abilities that, despite his face seldom being seen, "his character's silent pledge to protect the Being has become enough to define his character". "Polygon" writer Charlie Hall praised the Mandalorian's stunt team, particularly their work during combat scenes in "Chapter 6: The Prisoner". The Mandalorian ranked third on a "Screen Rant" list of the most interesting characters from the first season of "The Mandalorian", second on a separate list of the ten best characters from the show, and his costume was ranked second on a list of the ten best costumes in the first season.


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Not all reviews of the character were positive. "Vox" writer Emily VanDerWerff called it an "objectively terrible idea" to cast an actor as talented and charismatic as Pascal and then "trap him behind a mask for its entire running time" with minimal dialogue. BBC writer Caryn James said she felt no emotional connection with the character, writing: "really anyone might be behind all that armour". Max Cea of "GQ" felt the mask was "emotionally concealing", making it difficult for the viewer to feel invested in the character. "The A.V. Club" writer Katie Rife said the fact that Pascal does not always portray the Mandalorian does not ruin her enjoyment of the show or character, but "knowing it's a stunt double does spoil the illusion a bit". Likewise, Philip Ellis of "Men's Health" called it "a disintegrating blow to our suspension of disbelief".


title: The Mandalorian (character)

text: Several toys and merchandise works of the Mandalorian were released. A Funko Pop figurine of the character was announced on December 31, 2019. Hot Toys released a one-sixth-scale action figure of the Mandalorian, and Hasbro released a six-inch action figure of the character as part of the company's "" toy line. Diamond Select Toys created a 1:2-scale bust of the Mandalorian, which stands at about 10 inches tall. Designed by Joe Allard and sculpted by Rocco Tartamella, it had a limited production run of 1,000 pieces. Lego has announced plans for an August 2020 release of BrickHeadz figures of the Mandalorian, as well as a September 2020 release of a Lego set for the Mandalorian's "Razor Crest" spaceship, which will include a small figurine of the character.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to their shared history and identity.


title: Gullah

text: Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's coast south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on Florida's coast. The Gullah people and their language are also called Geechee, which may be derived from the name of the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia. "Gullah" is a term that was originally used to designate the creole dialect of English spoken by Gullah and Geechee people. Over time, its speakers have used this term to formally refer to their creole language and distinctive ethnic identity as a people. The Georgia communities are distinguished by identifying as either "Freshwater Geechee" or "Saltwater Geechee", depending on whether they live on the mainland or the Sea Islands.


title: Gullah

text: Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, the Africans, enslaved from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region. The Gullah people speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and influenced by African languages in grammar and sentence structure. Sometimes referred to as "Sea Island Creole" by linguists and scholars, the Gullah language is sometimes considered as being similar to Bahamian Creole, Barbadian Creole, Guyanese Creole, Belizean Creole, Jamaican Patois and the Sierra Leone Krio language of West Africa. Gullah crafts, farming and fishing traditions, folk beliefs, music, rice-based cuisine and story-telling traditions all exhibit strong influences from Central and West African cultures.


title: Gullah

text: The origin of the word "Gullah" can be traced to the KiKongo language, spoken around the Congo River's mouth from which the Gullah language dialects spoken by black Americans today come. Some scholars suggest that it may be cognate with the name "Kongo", where the ancestors of some of the Gullah people likely originated. They created a new culture synthesized from that of the various African peoples brought into Charleston and other parts of South Carolina. Some scholars have suggested that it may come from the name of the Gola, an ethnic group living in the border area between present-day Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa, another area of enslaved ancestors of the Gullah people. British planters in the Caribbean and the Southern colonies of North America referred to this area as the "Grain Coast" or "Rice Coast"; many of the tribes are of Mandé or Manding origins. The name "Geechee", another common name for the Gullah people, may derive from the name of the Kissi people, an ethnic group living in the border area between Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.


title: Gullah

text: Still another possible linguistic source for "Gullah" are the Dyula ethnic group of West Africa, from whom the American Gullah might be partially descended. The Dyula civilization had a large territory that stretched from Senegal through Mali to Burkina Faso and the rest of what was French West Africa. These were vast savanna lands with lower population densities. Slave raiding was easier and more common here than in forested areas with natural forms of physical defenses. The word "Dyula" is pronounced "Gwullah" among members of the Akan ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. The primary land route through which captured Dyula people then came into contact with European slavers was the "Grain Coast" and "Rice Coast" (present-day Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegambia, and Guinea). The story of Gullah Jack (an African slave trafficked from Angola to the United States) may indicate that the word "Gullah" originated in Angola, as some commentators believe the word is a shortened version of the country's name. Gullah Jack's other name was Jack Pritchard because he was sold to a white man with the last name Pritchard.


title: Gullah

text: Some scholars have also suggested indigenous American origins for these words. The Spanish named the South Carolina and Georgia coastal region as "Guale", after a Native American tribe. The name of the Ogeechee River, a prominent geographical feature in coastal Georgia and central to Guale territory, may have been derived from a Creek Indian (Muskogee language) word. Sapelo Island, the site of the last Gullah community of Hog Hammock, was also principal place of refuge for Guale people who also fled slavery on the mainland.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah people have several West African words in their language that survived despite hundreds of years of slavery when African Americans were forced to speak English.


title: Gullah

text: According to Port of Charleston records, African slaves shipped to the port came from the following areas: Angola (39%), Senegambia (20%), the Windward Coast (17%), the Gold Coast (13%), Sierra Leone (6%), and Madagascar, Mozambique, and the two Bights (viz., Benin and Biafra) (5% combined) (Pollitzer, 1999:43). The term "Windward Coast" often referred to Sierra Leone, so the total figure of slaves from that region is higher than 6%.


title: Gullah

text: Particularly along the western coast, the local peoples had cultivated African rice for what is estimated to approach 3,000 years. African rice is a species related to, yet distinct from, Asian rice. It was originally domesticated in the inland delta of the Upper Niger River. Once Carolinian and Georgian planters in the American South discovered that African rice would grow in that region, they often sought enslaved Africans from rice-growing regions because they had the skills and knowledge needed to develop and build irrigation, dams and earthworks.


title: Gullah

text: Two British trading companies based in England operated the slave castle at Bunce Island (formerly called Bance Island), located in the Sierra Leone River. Henry Laurens was their main contact in Charleston and was a planter and slave trader. His counterpart in Britain was the Scottish merchant and slave trader Richard Oswald. Many of the enslaved Africans taken in West Africa were processed through Bunce Island. It was a prime export site for slaves to South Carolina and Georgia. Slave castles in Ghana, by contrast, shipped many of the people they handled to ports and markets in the Caribbean islands.


title: Gullah

text: After Freetown, Sierra Leone, was founded in the late 18th century by the British as a colony for poor blacks from London and black Loyalists from Nova Scotia resettled after the American Revolutionary War, the British did not allow slaves to be taken from Sierra Leone, protecting the people from kidnappers. In 1808 both Great Britain and the United States prohibited the African slave trade. After that date, the British, whose navy patrolled to intercept slave ships off Africa, sometimes resettled Africans liberated from slave trader ships in Sierra Leone. Similarly, Americans sometimes settled freed slaves at Liberia, a similar colony established in the early 19th century by the American Colonization Society. As it was a place for freed slaves and free blacks from the United States, some free blacks emigrated there voluntarily, for the chance to create their own society.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah people have been able to preserve much of their African cultural heritage because of climate, geography, cultural pride, and patterns of importation of enslaved Africans. Enslaved persons from the Central Western region of Africa, originating primarily from the Mende populations of what is today Sierra Leone, and transported to some areas of Brazil (including Bahia), the enslaved Gullah-Gheechee people were traded in what was then Charlestowne, South Carolina. According to British historian P.E.H. Hair, Gullah culture developed as a creole culture in the colonies and United States from the peoples of many different African cultures who came together there. These included the Baga, Fula, Kissi, Kpelle, Limba, Mandinka, Mende, Susu, Temne, Vai, and Wolof of the Rice Coast, and many from Angola, Yoruba, Igbo, Calabar, Congo and the Gold Coast.


title: Gullah

text: By the middle of the 18th century, thousands of acres in the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry, and the Sea Islands were developed as African rice fields. African farmers from the "Rice Coast" brought the skills for cultivation and tidal irrigation that made rice farming one of the most successful industries in early America.


title: Gullah

text: The subtropical climate encouraged the spread of malaria and yellow fever, which were both carried and transmitted by mosquitoes. These tropical diseases were endemic in Africa and might have been carried by enslaved Africans to the colonies. Mosquitoes in the swamps and inundated rice fields of the Lowcountry picked up and spread the diseases to European settlers, as well. Malaria and yellow fever soon became endemic in the region.


title: Gullah

text: Because they had acquired some immunity in their homeland, Africans were more resistant to these tropical fevers than were the Europeans. As the rice industry was developed, planters continued to import enslaved Africans. By about 1708, South Carolina had a black majority. Coastal Georgia developed a black majority after rice cultivation expanded there in the mid-18th century. Malaria and yellow fever became endemic. Fearing these diseases, many white planters and their families left the Lowcountry during the rainy spring and summer months when fevers ran rampant. Others lived mostly in cities such as Charleston rather than on the isolated plantations, especially those on the Sea Islands.


title: Gullah

text: The planters left their European or African "rice drivers", or overseers, in charge of the rice plantations. These had hundreds of laborers, with African traditions reinforced by new imports from the same regions. Over time, the Gullah people developed a creole culture in which elements of African languages, cultures, and community life were preserved to a high degree. Their culture developed in a distinct way, different from that of the enslaved African Americans in states such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, where the enslaved lived in smaller groups, and had more sustained and frequent interactions with whites and British American culture.


title: Gullah

text: When the U.S. Civil War began, the Union rushed to blockade Confederate shipping. White planters on the Sea Islands, fearing an invasion by the US naval forces, abandoned their plantations and fled to the mainland. When Union forces arrived on the Sea Islands in 1861, they found the Gullah people eager for their freedom, and eager as well to defend it. Many Gullah served with distinction in the Union Army's First South Carolina Volunteers. The Sea Islands were the first place in the South where slaves were freed. Long before the War ended, Unitarian missionaries from Pennsylvania came to start schools on the islands for the newly freed slaves. Penn Center, now a Gullah community organization on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, was founded as the first school for freed slaves.


title: Gullah

text: After the Civil War ended, the Gullahs' isolation from the outside world increased in some respects. The rice planters on the mainland gradually abandoned their plantations and moved away from the area because of labor issues and hurricane damage to crops. Free blacks were unwilling to work in the dangerous and disease-ridden rice fields. A series of hurricanes devastated the crops in the 1890s. Left alone in remote rural areas of the Lowcountry, the Gullah continued to practice their traditional culture with little influence from the outside world well into the 20th century.


title: Gullah

text: In the 20th century, some plantations were redeveloped as resort or hunting destinations by wealthy whites. Gradually more visitors went to the islands to enjoy their beaches and mild climate. Since the late 20th century, the Gullah people—led by Penn Center and other determined community groups—have been fighting to keep control of their traditional lands. Since the 1960s, resort development on the Sea Islands has greatly increased property values, threatening to push the Gullah off family lands which they have owned since emancipation. They have fought back against uncontrolled development on the islands through community action, the courts, and the political process.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah have also struggled to preserve their traditional culture in the face of much more contact with modern culture and media. In 1979, a translation of the New Testament into the Gullah language was begun. The American Bible Society published "De Nyew Testament" in 2005. In November 2011, "Healin fa de Soul", a five-CD collection of readings from the Gullah Bible, was released. This collection includes "Scipcha Wa De Bring Healing" ("Scripture That Heals") and the Gospel of John ("De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write"). This was also the most extensive collection of Gullah recordings, surpassing those of Lorenzo Dow Turner. The recordings have helped people develop an interest in the culture, because they get to hear the language and learn how to pronounce some words.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah achieved another victory in 2006 when the U.S. Congress passed the "Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Act"; it provided $10 million over 10 years for the preservation and interpretation of historic sites in the Low Country relating to Gullah culture. The Heritage Corridor will extend from southern North Carolina to northern Florida. The project will be administered by the US National Park Service, with extensive consultation with the Gullah community.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah have also reached out to West Africa. Gullah groups made three celebrated "homecomings" to Sierra Leone in 1989, 1997, and 2005. Sierra Leone is at the heart of the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa where many of the Gullahs' ancestors originated. Bunce Island, the British slave castle in Sierra Leone, sent many African captives to Charleston and Savannah during the mid- and late 18th century. These dramatic homecomings were the subject of three documentary films—"Family Across the Sea" (1990), "The Language You Cry In" (1998), and "Priscilla's Homecoming" (in production).


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah have preserved many of their west African food ways growing and eating crops such as Sea island red peas, Carolina Gold rice, Sea Island Benne, Sea island Okra, sorghum, and watermelon all of which were brought with them from West Africa. Rice is a staple food in Gullah communities and continues to be cultivated in abundance in the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina. Rice is also an important food in West African cultures. As descendants of enslaved Africans, the Gullah continued the traditional food and food techniques of their ancestors, demonstrating another link to traditional African cultures.


title: Gullah

text: Rice is a core commodity of the Gullah food system: a meal was not considered complete without rice. There are strict rituals surrounding the preparation of rice in the Gullah communities. First, individuals would remove the darker grains from the rice, and then hand wash the rice numerous times before it was ready for cooking. The Gullah people would add enough water for the rice to steam on its own, but not so much that one would have to stir or drain it. These traditional techniques were passed down during the period of slavery and are still an important part of rice preparation by Gullah people.


title: Gullah

text: The first high-profile book on Gullah cooking was published in 2022 by Emily Meggett, an 89-year-old Gullah cook.


title: Gullah

text: Over the years, the Gullah have attracted study by many historians, linguists, folklorists, and anthropologists interested in their rich cultural heritage. Many academic books on that subject have been published. The Gullah have also become a symbol of cultural pride for blacks throughout the United States and a subject of general interest in the media. Numerous newspaper and magazine articles, documentary films, and children's books on Gullah culture, have been produced, in addition to popular novels set in the Gullah region. In 1991 Julie Dash wrote and directed "Daughters of the Dust", the first feature film about the Gullah, set at the turn of the 20th century on St. Helena Island. Born into a Gullah family, she was the first African-American woman director to produce a feature film.


title: Gullah

text: Gullah people now organize cultural festivals every year in towns up and down the Lowcountry. Hilton Head Island, for instance, hosts a "Gullah Celebration" in February. It includes "De Aarts ob We People" show; the "Ol’ Fashioned Gullah Breakfast"; "National Freedom Day," the "Gullah Film Fest", "A Taste of Gullah" food and entertainment, a "Celebration of Lowcountry Authors and Books," an "Arts, Crafts & Food Expo," and "De Gullah Playhouse". Beaufort hosts the oldest and the largest celebration, "The Original Gullah Festival" in May. The nearby Penn Center on St. Helena Island holds "Heritage Days" in November. Other Gullah festivals are celebrated on James Island, South Carolina and Sapelo Island, Georgia.


title: Gullah

text: Gullah culture is also being celebrated elsewhere in the United States. The High Art Museum in Atlanta has presented exhibits about Gullah culture. The Black Cultural Center at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana conducted a research tour, cultural arts festival, and other related events to showcase the Gullah culture. The Black Cultural Center Library maintains a bibliography of Gullah books and materials, as well. Metro State College in Denver, Colorado recently hosted a conference on Gullah culture, called "The Water Brought Us: Gullah History and Culture," which featured a panel of Gullah scholars and cultural activists. These events in Indiana and Colorado are typical of the attention Gullah culture regularly receives throughout the United States.


title: Gullah

text: Gullah culture has proven to be particularly resilient. Gullah traditions are strong in the rural areas of the Lowcountry mainland and on the Sea Islands, and among their people in urban areas such as Charleston and Savannah. Gullah people who have left the Lowcountry and moved far away have also preserved traditions; for instance, many Gullah in New York, who went North in the Great Migration of the first half of the 20th century, have established their own neighborhood churches in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Queens. Typically they send their children back to rural communities in South Carolina and Georgia during the summer months to live with grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Gullah people living in New York frequently return to the Lowcountry to retire. Second- and third-generation Gullah in New York often maintain many of their traditional customs and many still speak the Gullah language.


title: Gullah

text: The Gullah custom of painting porch ceilings haint blue to deter haints, or ghosts, survives in the American South. Having also been adopted by White Southerners, it has lost some of its spiritual significance.


title: Big City Greens

text: Big City Greens is an American animated comedy adventure television series created by The Houghton Brothers that premiered on Disney Channel on June 18, 2018. The series features the voices of Chris Houghton, Marieve Herington, Bob Joles, and Artemis Pebdani.


title: Big City Greens

text: After losing his farm in the country, Bill Green and his two children Cricket and Tilly move in with his mother Alice Green (Gramma), who lives on a small farm in the middle of a city known as "Big City."


title: Big City Greens

text: On March 8, 2016, Disney XD greenlit the series under the title of "Country Club". The series is created by the brothers Chris and Shane Houghton, who originally worked on Nickelodeon's "Harvey Beaks". Chris Houghton also worked as a storyboard artist on "Gravity Falls" with Rob Renzetti. The series was later renamed to "Big City Greens" on July 24, 2017. The show's animation is done entirely in traditional pen and paper as opposed to digital ink. The theme song was written and performed by The Mowgli's, and on July 28, 2017, a sneak peek of it was revealed at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con and was uploaded to Disney XD's YouTube channel on the same day. On May 17, 2018, it was reported that Disney Channel had ordered a second season of "Big City Greens" ahead of the series' debut. On October 7, 2019, it was announced that the second season will premiere on November 4, 2019, however, it got pushed back to November 16, 2019. On January 13, 2021, the series was renewed for a third season. On January 21, 2022, the series was renewed for a fourth season.


title: Big City Greens

text: During production for the first season, an episode titled "Hands-On History" was in development. The episode was directed by Monica Ray, from a story by Carson Montgomery, also being written and storyboarded by Caldwell Tanner and Cheyenne Curtis. It featured Mark Hamill in the role of Dr. Ponderstein, a sinister curator who ran a museum. The plot focused on Cricket and Remy at odds with one another, over Ponderstein's method of educating children. The episode was shelved when the Houghton Brothers found Remy's behavior in the episode unlikeable - they could not find a way to make the story work so early in the show's run. On cancelling the episode, co-creator Chris Houghton stated, "[W]e killed that episode for the best of reasons: it just didn’t work. We broke and re-broke the story a ton of times. Reboarded it again and again. Sometimes the best course of action is to take your creation out behind the shed, ya know?" The episode's production number, 110, would be given to "Parade Day" and "DIY Guys" instead.


title: Big City Greens

text: When announced, the series was scheduled to premiere in 2018 on Disney XD; however, on March 26, 2018, it was reported that the series would debut on Disney Channel in mid-2018. On May 17, 2018, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that the series would premiere on Disney Channel as part of Disney Channel's GO! Summer on June 18, 2018. The series premiere was made available for streaming via the DisneyNow app and the Disney Channel YouTube channel as of June 8, 2018. Additional new episodes premiered on This Week Mornings at 10:00 AM throughout the summer. In addition, "Big City Greens" shorts began airing on Disney Channel and Disney Channel’s YouTube channel on June 4, 2018.


title: Big City Greens

text: "Big City Greens" received a positive reception from critics. "Common Sense Media"s Emily Ashby praised the series for its characters and themes, writing that "despite mining familiar stereotypes of rural dwellers, the show has strong family-centric themes and silly, lighthearted laughs". Bekah Burbank of "LaughingPlace.com" praised the series' characters, stating that "While the mischief and antics are super silly and completely ridiculous, the characters themselves are quite fun. Just like it is with every family, the quirkiness is what you come to love most about the people you spend time with. The Green family might not be perfect, but they’re positive, supportive, and optimistic no matter the situation. Everyone could benefit from spending a little time with this wacky family".


title: Big City Greens

text: Along with a fourth season, a musical film was announced to be in development, with the series' main cast returning. Series director Anne O'Brian will helm the film, with Michael Coughling producing. The film is set to be released on both Disney Channel and Disney+.


title: Big City Greens

text: A multiplayer game titled "Big City Battle!", where players compete against each other in order to earn a place as a member of the Green family, was released on the DisneyNOW app.


title: Lady Justice

text: Lady Justice () is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia.


title: Lady Justice

text: Lady Justice originates from the personification of Justice in Ancient Roman art known as "Iustitia" or "Justitia", who is equivalent to the Greek goddess Dike.


title: Lady Justice

text: The origin of Lady Justice was Justitia (or Iustitia), the goddess of Justice within Roman mythology. Justitia was introduced by emperor Augustus, and was thus not a very old deity in the Roman pantheon.


title: Lady Justice

text: Justice was one of the virtues celebrated by emperor Augustus in his "clipeus virtutis", and a temple of Iustitia was established in Rome by emperor Tiberius. Iustitia became a symbol for the virtue of justice with which every emperor wished to associate his regime; emperor Vespasian minted coins with the image of the goddess seated on a throne called "Iustitia Augusta", and many emperors after him used the image of the goddess to proclaim themselves protectors of justice.


title: Lady Justice

text: Though formally called a goddess with her own temple and cult shrine in Rome, it appears that she was from the onset viewed more as an artistic symbolic personification rather than as an actual deity with religious significance.


title: Lady Justice

text: The personification of justice balancing the scales dates back to the goddess Maat, and later Isis, of ancient Egypt. The Hellenic deities Themis and Dike were later goddesses of justice. Themis was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law.


title: Lady Justice

text: Lady Justice is most often depicted with a set of scales typically suspended from one hand, upon which she balances the act and consequences of the act to achieve equilibrium and, therefore, justice.


title: Lady Justice

text: Since the 16th century, Lady Justice has often been depicted wearing a blindfold. The blindfold was originally a satirical addition intended to show justice as blind to the injustice carried on before her, but it has been reinterpreted over time and is now understood to represent impartiality, the ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power, or other status. The earliest Roman coins depicted Justitia with the sword in one hand and the scale in the other, but with her eyes uncovered. Justitia was only commonly represented as "blind" since the middle of the 16th century. The first known representation of blind Justice is Hans Gieng's 1543 statue on the "Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen" (Fountain of Justice) in Bern.


title: Lady Justice

text: Instead of using the Janus approach, many sculptures simply leave out the blindfold altogether. For example, atop the Old Bailey courthouse in London, a statue of Lady Justice stands without a blindfold; the courthouse brochures explain that this is because Lady Justice was originally not blindfolded, and because her "maidenly form" is supposed to guarantee her impartiality which renders the blindfold redundant. Another variation is to depict a blindfolded Lady Justice as a human scale, weighing competing claims in each hand. An example of this can be seen at the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee.


title: Lady Justice

text: The sword represented authority in ancient times, and conveys the idea that justice can be swift and final.


title: Lady Justice

text: Unicode version 4.1.0 implemented a scales symbol at code point U+2696, that may be used to represent the scales of justice.


title: Lady Justice

text: Lady Justice and her symbols are used in heraldry, especially in the arms and seals of legal government agencies.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen (, locally [ˈlɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən]; "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank of the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, the short estuary leading into Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the island's broadest inlet. As of 2002 Longyearbyen Community Council became an official Norwegian municipality. It is the seat of the Governor of Svalbard. The town's mayor is Arild Olsen.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Known as Longyear City until 1926, the town was established by and named after American John Munro Longyear, whose Arctic Coal Company started coal-mining there in 1906. Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK) took over the mining operations in 1916, and still conducts mining. The German "Kriegsmarine" almost completely destroyed the town on 8 September 1943, but rebuilding took place after the Second World War. Historically, Longyearbyen was a company town, but most mining operations moved to Sveagruva during the 1990s, and production ceased in 2017 due to immense financial losses suffered by SNSK since 2014 due to market conditions. Meanwhile, the town has seen a large increase in tourism and research. This includes the arrival of institutions such as the University Centre in Svalbard, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and Svalbard Satellite Station. Svalbard Airport, Svalbard Church and the Svalbardbutikken department store serve the community.


title: Longyearbyen

text: In 1896, Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab started tours to Hotellneset. To accommodate tourists, they built a prefabricated hotel, but it was not profitable and was closed after the 1897 season. However, two families overwintered in 1898–99. and Norway Post operated a post office at Hotellneset from 1897 to 1899. The first commercially viable coal on Svalbard was harvested by Søren Zakariassen in 1899. In 1901, Bergen-Spitsbergen Kullgrube-kompani started mining coal in Adventtoppen.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The American industrialist John Munro Longyear visited Spitsbergen as a tourist in 1901, and met with an expedition prospecting for coal. In 1903 he returned to Spitsbergen, where he met Henrik B. Næss in Adventfjorden, who gave him samples and information on coal fields. Along with his associate Frederick Ayer, Longyear bought the Norwegian claims on the west side of Adventfjorden, and expanded the claims significantly the following year. In 1906, the Boston-based Arctic Coal Company, with Ayer and Longyear as the main shareholders, started mining in Mine 1a, after building docks and housing. The company had American administration, but mostly Norwegian labourers, and named the town Longyear City. Coal was transported the from the mine to the port using an aerial tramway built by the former world leading aerial cableway company Adolf Bleichert & Co. of Leipzig, Germany. In 1913, the company started preliminary work to open Mine 2a.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Following financial difficulties during the First World War, the mining operations were bought by Store Norske, which was incorporated in Oslo on 30 November 1916. That year, SNSK built five new barracks, including one that was made into a hospital. SNSK introduced its own money with the approval of Norges Bank, consisting entirely of banknotes at par with Norwegian krone. The American community buried their dead at Hotellneset. In 1918, eleven people were killed by the Spanish flu and a graveyard was established in Longyear City. Two years later, 26 men were killed in a coal dust explosion in Mine 1. This resulted in the mine being closed and electric operation being taken into use in Mine 2. The same year, the first truck was delivered for use in the mining operations.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The Church of Norway appointed Thorleif Østenstad as Svalbard's first vicar and teacher in 1920.A school was established as a cooperation between the church and SNSK and had an inaugural eight pupils.The first church in Svalbard opened on 28 August 1921, and the church's reading room was from then on used as a school. Longyear City was renamed Longyearbyen in 1926.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The Norwegian Telecommunications Administration established a coast radio station, Svalbard Radio, at Finneset in 1911, which was moved to Longyearbyen in 1930. The town's tourist industry started in 1935, when SS "Lyngen" started calling regularly during the summer season. In 1937, SNSK established Sverdrupbyen to house workers for Mine 1b, and operation of the mine started in 1939. In 1938, Longyearbyen's first road was completed, between the town centre and Sverdrupbyen. Operations at Mine 2b, a different entrance to Mine 2a, started in 1939.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Svalbard remained unaffected by the German occupation of Norway in 1940. However, from 1941 the archipelago became of strategic importance in the supply chain between the Allied powers, as well as a source of badly needed coal. The Norwegian government-in-exile rejected a Soviet–British occupation; instead the British Army started Operation Gauntlet to evacuate Spitsbergen. On 29 August 1941, the entire population of Ny-Ålesund was evacuated to Longyearbyen, and on 3 September 765 people were evacuated from Longyearbyen to Scotland. Later the last 150 men were also evacuated. With Longyearbyen depopulated, a small German garrison and air strip were established in Adventdalen, mostly to provide meteorological data. After the British Operation Fritham regained control of Barentsburg, the German forces left Longyearbyen without combat.


title: Longyearbyen

text: In September 1943, the "Kriegsmarine" dispatched two battleships, "Tirpitz" and "Scharnhorst", and nine destroyers to bombard Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and Grumant. Only four buildings in Longyearbyen survived: the hospital, the power station, an office building, and a residential building. Longyearbyen remained unsettled until the end of the war, with the first ship from the mainland leaving on 27 June 1945.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Plans were laid during the war to ensure a quick reconstruction and restarting of mining. By 1948, coal production had reached the pre-war level of per year. Nybyen was established in 1946 and consisted of five barracks, each housing 72 people. The first issue of "Svalbardposten" was published in November 1948. Until then, various wall newspapers had been published irregularly. In 1949, Longyearbyen received a telephone connection with the mainland via a radio connection between Svalbard Radio and Harstad. In 1949, a farm was built in Longyearbyen to hold cattle (for milk), pigs, and hens. A local radio station started broadcasting in 1950. The burial ground remained in use until 1950, with 44 people buried. However, it was discovered that the bodies were failing to decompose because of the permafrost, and that they could be preserving various microorganisms. Bodies have since been sent to the mainland for burial. The community centre Huset opened in 1951.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Mining in Mine 1b was terminated in 1958, but operation in Mine 5 started the following year. Preliminary work on Mine 4 started in 1954, and from 1960 it was used as a reserve mine. The Norwegian Air Force started serving Longyearbyen with postal flights in the 1950s. In 1959, a man fell seriously ill, so a landing strip was prepared in Adventdalen. From the same year, Braathens SAFE started serving the tundra airport with irregular winter flights. In 1957, a principal was hired at the primary school and a new church was opened on 24 August 1958. From 1961, the primary school was supplemented by a private middle school. A branch of Tromsø Sparebank opened in 1959.


title: Longyearbyen

text: In the 1960s, the town's farm was closed and replaced by industrial liquefaction of powdered milk. The first serial-produced snowmobile was taken into use in 1961. By 1969, there were 140 registered snowmobiles and only 33 registered cars. From 1962 to 1984, a recreational centre was run at Sverdrupbyen. Ordinary operation in Mine 4 started in 1966 but was terminated by 1970, two years after Mine 2b closed. Operations in Mine 6 commenced in 1969. Television broadcasting equipment was installed in 1969, with the schedule of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation being aired with a two-week delay.


title: Longyearbyen

text: In 1971, a new school building, with a combined primary and lower secondary school, was opened, along with a new gymnasium and a swimming pool. The Svalbard Council was established on 1 November 1971. It consisted of 17 non-partisan members who were elected or appointed in three different groups: SNSK employees, government employees and others, although the ratio changed several times. Operations of Mine 3 started in March 1971 and operations in Mine 7 commenced the following year. In 1973, the Ministry of Trade and Industry bought a third of SNSK. It continued buying additional shares until it reached a 99.94 percent ownership in 1976. The airport was opened in 1975 and initially provided four weekly services to mainland Norway and semi-weekly services to Russia. In 1978, the community received satellite communications with the mainland. The same year, an upper secondary program was introduced at the public school. From 1984, television programmes were broadcast live via satellite.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Store Norske underwent a gradual change during the 1980s. Since 1980, Spitsbergen money has been taken out of circulation and replaced with ordinary Norwegian currency. Mine 6 closed the following year. From 1982, SNSK permitted private individuals to own and operate cars. By 1990, there were 353 registered cars and 883 snowscooters. On 1 July 1983, SNSK moved its head office from Bergen to Longyearbyen. Svalbard Samfunnsdrift (SSD), a limited company that was responsible for public infrastructure and services, was established by SNSK on 1 January 1989. Responsibilities included healthcare, the fire brigade, the kindergarten, roads, rubbish disposal, power production, the water and sewer system, the cinema, cultural activities and the library. Ownership was taken over by the Ministry of Trade and Industry on 1 January 1993.


title: Longyearbyen

text: During the 1990s, the authorities started a process to "normalise" Longyearbyen by abolishing the company town scheme and introducing a full range of services, a varied economy and local democracy. Commercial enterprises included a shopping mall replacing SNSK's provision store in 1992. Similarly, Esso opened a commercial fuel station in 1994. The Svalbard Council changed its regulations from 1993 and allowed parties to run for election. In a step to increase tourism, Svalbard Polar Hotel opened in 1995, and a year later mining of Mine 3 terminated. Longyearbyen Community Council was established in 2002, replacing the Svalbard Council and assimilating SSD, and took on many of the responsibilities and the structure of a municipality.


title: Longyearbyen

text: This period also saw the rise of a number of scientific establishments. The Agricultural University of Norway had established a primitive seed bank in 1984. The University Centre in Svalbard opened on 6 September 1993 and had 30 students in its inaugural semester. Telenor Mobil established GSM coverage in 1995, and in 2004 the Svalbard Undersea Cable System opened, providing fiber optic cable connection to the mainland. The European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) opened a radar in 1996, followed by Svalbard Satellite Station in 1999 and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2008.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen is in the lower portion of the Longyear Valley, along the Longyear River. The lower parts of the town lie along the southwestern shore of the bay of Adventfjorden, a branch of Isfjorden. Longyearbyen is on the Nordenskiöld Land peninsula of Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago. Across the bay lie the ghost towns of Advent City and Hiorthhamn. It is the world's second northernmost town, with all settlements further north (excluding Ny-Ålesund) being research or meteorological outposts. The northernmost permanent settlement in the world is Alert, Canada, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, while the true northernmost settlement in the world is Camp Barneo in April.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen is divided into several neighbourhoods. On the west side of the river, along the bay, lies the port and affiliated utility and industrial services. The western part of this area is called Bykaia and the eastern part Sjøområdet. Above lies Skjæringa, the site of the Governor's offices. Slightly up the valley on the west side lies Gamle Longyearbyen ("Old Longyearbyen") and the church. Even further up lies the graveyard, then Huset and the cinema, and finally Sverdrupbyen. Most of the residential, commercial and cultural institutions are on the east side of the river. Along the bay the area is called Sjøskrenten. Further up lies the university centre and Gruvedalen, the largest residential area. Southwards from there is the main shopping area as well as the town hall. To the east is the residential area Lia and further up Haugen, which is also the location of the school. Furthest up in the valley is Mine 2b and Nybyen, which is mostly used as student housing. Westwards out of town towards Hotellneset is the airport and Mine 3. The remaining mines are in Adventdalen, to the east of town.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Svalbard's climate is a polar tundra climate (Köppen: ET) tempered by the North Atlantic Current. The west coast of Svalbard is the warmest and wettest part of the archipelago (except for Bear Island). This is caused by the convergence of mild and humid air from the south and cold air from the north. Longyearbyen generally has lower humidity than other settlements within the Arctic Circle. Longyearbyen experiences midnight sun from between 18 April and 23 August (127 days), polar night from 27 October to 15 February (111 days) and civil polar night from 13 November to 29 January. However, due to shading from mountains, the sun is not visible in Longyearbyen until around 8 March. Snow typically covers the town from November to March. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Longyearbyen was in July 2020 and the coldest was in March 1986. Svalbard and Longyearbyen are among the places in the world that have warmed fastest in the latest decades. The 1991–2020 averages show that mean annual temperature in Longyearbyen has increased by since 1961–1990. With the sea surface temperatures warming, ice formation takes longer in the surrounding waters and thus especially early winter under the polar night warms the fastest due to the shorter ice season.


title: Longyearbyen

text: , Longyearbyen is the fastest-warming town in the world. Since 1971, temperatures on Svalbard have risen five times faster than the global average, by roughly four degrees Celsius. Winters now are more than seven degrees C warmer than they were in the 1970s. In 2020, Svalbard recorded its hottest ever temperature, , following 111 months of above-average heat. According to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, annual precipitation on Svalbard has increased by 30 to 45 percent over the past 50 years, mostly in the form of winter rain. Since 2009, deep permafrost temperatures have increased at rates between 0.06 and 0.15-degree C per year.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Although Alert, Canada probably has a lower UV index, Longyearbyen has the lowest known ultraviolet rate for an inhabited place on Earth, ranging from 2 in summer to 0 from October to March, averaging 1 over 12 months.


title: Longyearbyen

text: , Longyearbyen had a population of 2,368 people. The largest regional group of Norwegians are from Northern Norway, particularly Nordland and Troms, who make up more than 40 percent of the population. Roughly 300 people (16 percent) are non-Norwegian citizens, with the largest nationalities being from Thailand, Sweden, Russia and Ukraine. Because of the dominance of the mining industry, the gender distribution is skewed, with 60 percent of adults being males. Longyearbyen has an over-average share of its population between 25 and 44 years old, but nearly no residents over 66. The number of children in relation to the population is at the national average, but Longyearbyen has significantly fewer teenagers than the national average.


title: Longyearbyen

text: As of 2014, Thai people, numbering 120, were the second largest group of residents after Norwegians; there were 60 in 2006. Thais first came to Svalbard when men brought their wives from Thailand during the 1970s. In 2006, most of the Thai residents worked as cleaners, and as of 2011 most stay for terms of two to three years to save funds. In 2007, 10 students at the Longyearbyen School were Thai. The Thai community is active in numerous cultural events annually and motivated the establishment of a Thai supermarket.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen experiences a very high turnover; in 2008, 427 people (23 percent) moved away from the town. The average person lived in Longyearbyen for 6.3 years, although it is 6.6 years for Norwegians and 4.3 years for foreigners. In 2009, about a quarter of the population had lived in the town since before 2000, and can thus be regarded as its permanent population. The longest-residing people tend to work in the mining industry, followed by local government employees. The shortest tenures are held by students and employees in higher education, tourism and the state. The turnover has created what the Norwegian government calls a "revolving door society". Most young newcomers leave within seven years, a turnover rate far greater than in any municipality on the mainland.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Seventy percent of households consist of a single person, compared to forty-one percent on the mainland, giving an average 1.6 people per household. The difference is largely caused by persons working on Svalbard while their family remains on the mainland. Longyearbyen's population is more highly educated than the national average: 54 percent compared to 43 percent have upper secondary education and 30 percent compared to 26 percent have tertiary education. Among women, 40 percent have higher education.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen Community Council has many of the same responsibilities as a municipality. It is organised with a 15-member council that since 2015 has been led by Mayor Arild Olsen of the Labour Party. The council's main responsibilities are infrastructure and utilities, including power, land-use and community planning, education from kindergarten to upper secondary level and child welfare. It operates three kindergartens in addition to the 13-grade Longyearbyen School.


title: Longyearbyen

text: No care or nursing services and welfare payments are available. Norwegian residents retain pension and medical rights through their mainland municipalities. The University Hospital of North Norway operates a clinic, Longyearbyen Hospital. Other public offices with a presence on Longyearbyen are the Norwegian Directorate of Mining, the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Norwegian Tax Administration and the Church of Norway. Longyearbyen is subordinate to Nord-Troms District Court and Hålogaland Court of Appeal, both in Tromsø.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 established full Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago. The treaty came into effect in 1925, following the "Svalbard Act" that established the institution of the Governor of Svalbard. The governor holds responsibility as both county governor and chief of police, as well as holding other authority granted from the executive branch. Duties include environmental policy, family law, law enforcement, search and rescue, tourism management, information services, contact with foreign settlements and judge in some areas of maritime inquiries and judicial examinations—albeit never in the same cases as acting as police. Kjerstin Askholt has been governor since 2015; she is assisted by a staff of 26 professionals. The institution is subordinate to the Ministry of Justice and the Police, but reports to other ministries in matters within their portfolio.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Because of the town's remoteness, there are laws that are found in few, if any, other places in the world. Notable examples of such laws include a ban on cats, a restriction on how much alcohol an individual can purchase on a monthly basis, and a requirement that any individuals venturing outside carry a rifle for protection against polar bears. While it is popularly claimed that it is illegal to die in Longyearbyen, the wording of this claim is misleading. While it is not actually illegal to die in the town, there are no options for burial of bodies there (ashes can be buried with permission from the government) and residents considered terminally ill are typically required to move to the mainland. The decision to disallow burials came in 1950, when it was discovered that the bodies of residents who had died as a result of the 1918 flu pandemic had not begun to decompose. Today, scientists fear that the corpses, having been preserved by the permafrost in which they were buried, may still contain live strains of that same virus that killed five percent of the world's population in the 20th century.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The community council runs a number of cultural activities, such as a cinema, a youth club, a library and a gallery. The town's sports club is Svalbard Turn. Svalbardhallen is an indoor sport centre that includes a multi-sport hall large enough for handball or three badminton courts, a shooting range, a climbing wall and a swimming pool. Svalbard Church of the Church of Norway has the entire archipelago as its parish. The congregational hall is while the sitting room is . The church is built in half-timber. "Svalbardposten" is a weekly newspaper published on Friday. Printing takes place in Tromsø and the majority of subscribers live on the mainland. "Icepeople", an alternative newspaper in English, is also published weekly. There are two museums in town, Svalbard Museum and the Spitsbergen Airship Museum. Solfestuka ("Sun Festival Week") takes place each year during the week surrounding 8 March, the date sunlight is first visible in most of the town after the polar night that began the previous October (the first official sunrise is usually 16 February, but most of the town is still in shadow due to the surrounding mountains). Dark Season Blues has been held annually in October since 2003. Polarjazz has been held in late January/early February since 1998. Twenty residents of the town are members of the Liverbirds Svalbard and regularly meet in the Svalbar on match days during the winter months. Arctic Film Festival is a film festival which held annually in the city's screening venue, Kulturhuset. Longyearbyen is served by Arctic Outpost AM radio 1270.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Coal production peaked in 2007 at 4.1 million tonnes, and reduced to 1.1 million tonnes in 2015. The only mining still taking place in Longyearbyen is at Mine 7, up Adventdalen. In 2012 it produced of coal annually, of which is used to fuel Longyear Power Station, Norway's only coal-fueled power station. The power station was scheduled for a NOK 60 million maintenance work, and the local authorities decided a NOK 40 million upgrade of the diesel power plant instead.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Most of Store Norske's production was done at Sveagruva, on Van Mijenfjorden, south of Longyearbyen. No roads connect the communities; instead, workers lived in dormitories in Svea until it closed in 2017. Seventy percent commute home to the mainland while thirty percent commute to Longyearbyen. Mining has not been profitable and Store Norske relies on state subsidies to retain production.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Svalbard fisheries have witnessed an unforeseen consequence of global warming: Atlantic cod, mackerel, and snow crabs, fleeing warmer waters to the south, are heading north to Svalbard, swelling the local catch. In the decade of the 2020s, Norway values its Svalbard fishing trade at about US$94 million annually.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) has 350 students and a permanent faculty of 40 professors and assistants and 120 guest lecturers. UNIS does not offer degrees, but instead offers semester courses in biology, physics and geology. Student housing is at Nybyen. The college is part of the Svalbard Science Centre, which also features the Norwegian Polar Institute, EISCAT and Svalbard Science Forum. In 2006, about 9,000 research days were spent in Longyearbyen, most of which were by Norwegians. This made Longyearbyen the second-largest research outpost on Svalbard, marginally below Ny-Ålesund. In contrast, Longyearbyen has almost only Norwegian research, while Ny-Ålesund is roughly evenly split between Norwegian and foreign.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Svalbard Satellite Station was built because of Longyearbyen's excellent location to download data from satellites in polar orbit. At Platåberget above Hotellneset, it was built as a cooperation between NASA and the Norwegian Space Centre, but has since 2001 been operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services. EISCAT operates an incoherent scatter radar to study the northern lights. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, administered by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, is a secure underground facility capable of storing millions of crop seeds. The facility has been designed to protect against natural and human disasters, including global warming, floods and fires and nuclear holocaust. The site was chosen for a number of factors including its remoteness, sound geology and the ambient temperature of the permafrost.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen is the centre of tourism on the archipelago, although most tourism is generated based on natural experiences rather than visiting the town itself. However, Longyearbyen does provide supplies (including Svalbardbutikken, the area's only grocery store), accommodation and several museums. In 2008, Longyearbyen experienced 89,000 guest-nights, up from 30,000 in 1995. The average guest stayed 2.2 nights and 60 percent of the capacity was used by tourists. About 40,000 tourists flew into Longyearbyen. Two-thirds of the tourists come from Norway. In 2007, the tourism industry had a revenue of NOK 291 million and produced 200-man-years. The Svalbard society received NOK 380 million in public funding in 2008, which increased to 650 million in 2015.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen School serves ages 6–18. It is the primary and secondary school in the northernmost town on earth. Once pupils reach ages 16 or 17 many families move to mainland Norway. There is a non-degree-offering tertiary educational institution in Longyearbyen, University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS), co-located with the Norwegian Polar Institute, Svalbard Museum, Svalbard Science Forum.


title: Longyearbyen

text: The Czech Arctic Research Station is also based in Longyearbyen and provides facilities for researchers and students not only from the Czech Republic but from all over the world.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Longyearbyen has a road network stretching , but the network does not extend to any other communities. In 2008 there were 1,481 registered road vehicles and 49 percent of all households had a car. Cars are registered with ZN registration plates. There is a single dealer who sells Toyotas, Svalbard Auto, which is also one of two businesses providing repairs.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Snowmobiles are a popular mode of transport, and there are more snowmobiles than residents. In 2008, there were registered 2,672 snowmobiles, and 69 percent of households owned at least one. Off-road motorised transport is prohibited on bare ground, but snowmobiles are used extensively during winter—both for commercial and recreational activities. Transport from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg () and Pyramiden () is possible by snowmobile in winter, or by ship year round.


title: Longyearbyen

text: Svalbard Airport, Longyear is at Hotellneset, northwest of town. It has a long runway and is the only airport that is permitted to serve aircraft from the archipelago. Scandinavian Airlines operates daily flights to Oslo and Tromsø, and there are irregular flights to Russia. Lufttransport operates regular charter services to Svea Airport and Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben. Arktikugol operates helicopters to Barentsburg and Pyramiden. There are two quays in Longyearbyen, one for the export of coal and one for general goods. From 1907 to 1987, the mining companies operated a network of aerial tramways to transport coal from the mines to the port. In the years 1907–1908 the then worldwide leading German wire ropeways company, Adolf Bleichert & Co. from Lipsia, built a material cableway from mine 1 to the ship's loading station, which was later supplemented by a cableway to mine 2. The remains of these wire ropeways and later successors to other mines are still visible today.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Paul James "Mackenzie" Crook (born 29 September 1971) is an English actor, comedian, director and writer. He played Gareth Keenan in "The Office", Ragetti in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, Orell in the HBO series "Game of Thrones", and the title role of "Worzel Gummidge". He is also the creator and star of BBC Four's "Detectorists" (2014–2017), for which he won two BAFTA awards. He also plays major roles in TV series "Britannia", as the opposite leading druids Veran and Harka.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook was born on 29 September 1971 in Maidstone, Kent, and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He is the son of Michael Crook, a British Airways employee, and Sheila Crook, a hospital manager. As a child he received a course of hormone therapy for three years to treat a growth hormone deficiency. He attended Wilmington Grammar School for Boys.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: In the summers, he spent time at his uncle's tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for painting.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: One of Crook's earliest television appearances was in the 1998 Channel 4 sketch show "Barking", as a grotesque schoolteacher called Mr. Bagshaw who is said to be based on a variety of obnoxious, overbearing science teachers he was taught by while in school.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: He was offered his first major television role as a comedy sketch contributor on Channel 4's "The Eleven O'Clock Show" in 1998, from which Crook was later dropped. He was later a member of the main cast of the BBC sketch show "TV to Go" in 2001.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: In late 1999 he hosted the short-lived ITV1 show "Comedy Café" in the guise of his Charlie Cheese character. The show made by Channel X for ITV1 had Charlie Cheese interviewing various celebrities about their latest live tour, book, album or film release.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: In 2001, he auditioned for the role of Gareth Keenan in Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant popular mockumentary "The Office." Written originally for a larger, thuggish actor, Crook won the role and by the end of the series in 2003 had earned two BAFTA nominations.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook was featured in "" (2003), "" (2006), and "" (2007); as Ragetti, a pirate with a comically ill-fitting wooden false eye, who is teamed with Pintel (Lee Arenberg).


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: He has appeared in adverts as the character for Visa and M&M's. He has also featured as himself in adverts for MTV, Film Four and as a voiceover artiste for motor insurance company Green Flag in 2007. In 2010 he provided a voice over in an advertisement for the electrical retailer Currys.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook also appeared as Launcelot Gobbo in Michael Radford's 2004 film adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and had a minor role in the 2004 film "Finding Neverland" as a theatre usher. Other films he has appeared in include "The Gathering" (2003) and "The Brothers Grimm" (2005).


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook has starred in three of Tim Plester and Ben Gregor's short films: as Gary Tibbs in "Ant Muzak" (2002), as Servalan in "Blake's Junction 7" (2004), and as Glorious George in "World of Wrestling" (2006). All three of these films have been released on DVD. He has also voiced in a television series called "Modern Toss" and has featured in "I Want Candy" as Mr Dulberg, a quirky university professor and voiced a character called Rolli Bobbler in the English version of an animated film from Finland called "Quest for a Heart" (original Finnish name "Röllin Sydän"). He also performed a duet with Ricky Gervais in the "Concert for Diana".


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook played the leading role of Paul Callow in the comedy film "Three and Out," released on 25 April 2008. On 10 May 2008 he appeared in an episode of the BBC1 comedy/drama "Love Soup" playing the character Marty Cady and appeared in an episode of Andrew Davies' 2008 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit". He also provided his voice and movements to a character in Steven Spielberg's "", which began filming in January 2009 and was released in 2011.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook starred in Wyndham Price's drama "Abraham's Point" as Comet Snape and appeared in "City of Ember" as Looper, and on TV was featured in the documentary "Tattoos: A Scarred History" (2009). He also appeared in "Big Brother Celebrity Hijack" and the ITV drama "Demons" (originally titled "The Last Van Helsing") as the vampire Gladiolus Hadilus Tradius Thrip. In January 2009, Crook featured in the second and third episodes of the third series of the E4 teen drama "Skins", in which he played psychotic Bristol gangster Johnny White. He appeared in "Merlin", for the first episode of the second season, as Cedric, who tried to take Merlin's job as Prince Arthur's manservant.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: In November 2010 Mackenzie starred in "A Reluctant Tragic Hero", a comic play by Anton Chekhov, on the Sky Arts channel, which also starred Johnny Vegas, with whom he also starred in 2004's "Sex Lives of the Potato Men", a film about the sexual antics of a group of potato delivery men in Birmingham.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Mackenzie played Corporal Buckley, a brutal career soldier, in Jimmy McGovern's "Accused", broadcast on BBC1 in November 2010.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: During the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con it was announced that Crook would play the role of Orell in the third season of "Game of Thrones".


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: He also wrote and directed and starred in the television comedy series "Detectorists", which was first broadcast on BBC Four on 2 October 2014. Filmed in the countryside of Suffolk and the market town of Framlingham, the show is a gently humorous and affectionate portrayal of a pair of metal-detecting enthusiasts, Andy (Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones), and their colleagues in the fictional Danebury Metal Detecting Club. In 2015, Crook won a British Academy Television Craft Award for Best Writing in a Comedy Series for the show, whilst the series won the British Academy Television Award for Best Situation Comedy. A second series was broadcast in the UK in October/November 2015. A Christmas special was broadcast on 23 December 2015. In 2017 the third and final series of "Detectorists" was broadcast.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook then played the role of 'Nestor of Maddox' in the television fantasy-comedy series ""Yonderland"", which is broadcast on Sky 1, and stars and was also written by the key cast of the award-winning television educational historical comedy series ""Horrible Histories"". He plays the role of the father of the main character Debbie, played by Martha Howe-Douglas, and appears in three episodes of series 2: episodes 1, 2 and 4.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook played Billy Bibbit in the 2004 London West End production of the stage play of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" opposite Christian Slater, and in 2006 he appeared in "The Exonerated" at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: He starred in director Ian Rickson's production of "The Seagull" opposite Kristin Scott Thomas, as the troubled writer Konstantin for which he earned a nomination from the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Starting at the Royal Court Theatre in London in February/March 2007, it transferred to Broadway in September 2008. In December 2008 he finished the Broadway run of "The Seagull" at the Walter Kerr Theatre.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: From 15 July to 15 August 2009 Crook appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in Jez Butterworth's "Jerusalem." He and the play received rave reviews and it was transferred to the West End's Apollo Theatre in February 2010. In May 2011 he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play, for his role in the Broadway transfer of the show and also appeared in the 2011 London revival. Another revival of the play is scheduled for 2022 at the Apollo Theatre, featuring the creative team from the first production as well as Mark Rylance and Crook in their original roles as Johnny "Rooster" Byron and Ginger.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Also during 2010, on 18 April Crook took part in the fund raising event "We Are One, a celebration of tribal peoples", in aid of indigenous rights organisation Survival International, at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. The evening was a performance of tribal prose and poetry from some of the UK and Hollywood's leading actors and musicians. The event was created and directed by Mark Rylance. Crook appeared in the play "Aliens" at the Bush Theatre in October 2010 and in early 2012 appeared in "The Recruiting Officer" at the Donmar Warehouse.


title: Mackenzie Crook

text: Crook has directed a music video for the London electro band Paw Paw (his sister Zoe is one of the band members). The stop motion animation video accompanies the band's debut single 'Wired OK', released on 16 July 2007 on Albino Recordings.