Gina Carano didn’t get her pink slip before word of her firing from The Mandalorian went public, as the former Cara Dune actress found out on social media at the same time as the rest of us. Last week, Gina Carano came under fire for sharing a post on Instagram that critics say compared the treatment of American conservatives to the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust. Lucasfilm officially booted Carano from The Mandalorian soon after, citing Carano’s social media posts as “abhorrent” and announcing she was no longer employed by the company.
Some would say that Gina Carano’s firing was a long time coming, as this wasn’t the first time she’s generated controversy on social media. In 2020, Carano was heavily criticized for various posts online, sparking the social media campaign #FireGinaCarano. At one point, she was accused of transphobia for mocking gender pronouns on her Twitter bio. In a new interview with Bari Weiss, Carano opened up about the backlash and the apology she posted at the time.
“Earlier on last year before The Mandalorian came out, they wanted me to use their exact wording for an apology over pronoun usage. I declined and offered a statement in my own words. I made clear I wanted nothing to do with mocking the transgender community, and was just drawing attention to the abuse of the mob in forcing people to put pronouns in their bio.”
In the midst of the controversy, Carano tweeted that The Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal had helped her “understand” why people were putting preferred pronouns in their Twitter bios. Regardless, Lucasfilm pulled Carano from all press and promotion for season 2 of The Mandalorian, though, as far as she knew, she was still employed. As Carano details in her new interview, she hadn’t heard from Lucasfilm since last year’s controversy, and word of her firing this month came as a surprise.
“That was heart-breaking, but I didn’t want to take away from the hard work of everyone who worked on the project, so I said ok. That was the last time I was contacted about any type of public statement or apology from Lucasfilm. I found out through social media, like everyone else, that I had been fired.”
There are many who say Gina Carano’s firing is well-deserved, but she is certainly not without some fan support. A petition on Change.org was recently launched calling for Disney and Lucasfilm to bring Carano back to The Mandalorian. The petition seems very unlikely to succeed with its goal, but as of this writing, around 43,000 names have already been added to the list. It remains to be seen how many of these fans will follow Carano to her next project that’s already in the works.
Soon after she was booted by Lucasfilm, Carano announced that she would be developing, producing, and starring in a movie for Ben Shapiro’s conservative website The Daily Wire. No details about the story or any other aspects of the project have yet been revealed. Season 3 of The Mandalorian is also in the works, but don’t count on seeing Cara Dune return, at least not with Carano in the role. This news comes to us from Common Sense with Bari Weiss.