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February 23, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Former Star Wars actress Gina Carano is opening up about her experience being fired by Disney-owned Lucasfilm for dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy, giving an in-depth interview to conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, whose Daily Wire is partnering with the actress on an all-new film.

Earlier this month, Lucasfilm terminated its association with Carano following online activists’ uproar over an Instagram post in which the former MMA fighter warned that “to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”

In response, Lucasfilm issued a statement saying Carano, who co-starred as heroic mercenary Cara Dune in the popular streaming series The Mandalorian, “is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

The statement did not identify any post by Carano that “denigrat[es] people based on their cultural and religious identities.” The Hollywood Reporter quoted one source as saying Lucasfilm had “been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw.” 

“I’ve never really been interested in politics,” Carano tells Shapiro in the hour-long interview. “As soon as I started seeing what was happening, I guess, in 2020, I started looking up like, well, maybe the adults don’t have it under control, and maybe I’m an adult now and maybe I have a responsibility to pay attention.”

One early contribution to her political awakening, she says, came last fall, when pro-LGBT activists attacked her for refusing to add “preferred gender pronouns” to her Twitter bio, an act of solidarity with transgenderism. “I ended up putting ‘beep bop boop’ in my Twitter bio, and it was 100% to go to the Twitter mob that was telling you what to do; and it had zero to do with trying to go after the transgender community,” she recalls.

Another major factor was the economic shutdowns mandated last year by various state governments in the name of containing COVID-19. “I was really upset about the shutdowns,” Carano says. “I know what it’s like to be working and then not to work … I know the depression that comes with not working because my job has been on and off its entire life. Not having a job and not having purpose, it’s devastating. You know, you go through a depression.”

Online activists continued to heckle Carano and Disney over the actress’s conservative commentary on social media, which also touched on vote fraud and COVID-19 mask mandates. Left-wing calls for her head were not acted upon, with rumors persisting that Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau intervened on her behalf, until February, when Lucasfilm executives reportedly went over Favreau’s head.

Carano tells Shapiro that nobody within the company informed her she was being let go before publicly announcing the news.

“You know how boxers head-hunt sometimes and forget to go for the body?” she asks. “I feel like Disney or Lucasfilm or whoever it is, just certain people at that company … I feel like I’ve been being head-hunted and you can feel it. Just a couple of weeks ago, Lucasfilm asked an artist that they employ to erase my character and put a different character in place, and he proudly announces this on Twitter, and erases my character, and puts another character in place.”

“All the fans of Cara Dune were just outraged,” she notes. “They were like ‘Why didn’t you add the character? Why did you have to take off the character? Is there something wrong? Is Gina getting fired?’”

“I saw someone from the company accidentally send me a conversation, that they were tracking the ‘Fire Gina Carano’ hashtag on content that had nothing to do with me,” Carano reveals. “It actually had zero to do with me, and all of a sudden, I get thrown into the mix … They accidentally sent me an email, which was very enlightening, so I knew. I knew they were paying attention.”

“I know there were some people who went to bat for me, but I know that they didn’t win out at the end,” Carano says.

“I was prepared at any point to be let go because I’ve seen this happen to so many people,” she continues. “I’ve seen the looks on their faces. I’ve seen the bullying that takes place, and so when this started, they point their guns at you, and you know it’s only a matter of time. I’ve seen it happen to so many people, and I just thought to myself … ‘you’re coming for me, I know you are.’ They’re making it very obvious through their employees who were coming for me, and so I was like ‘I’m going to go down swinging and I’m going to stay true to myself.’”

During the interview, Carano reveals that she is “not the only one that’s ever been bullied by this company,” but cannot relay stories shared with her in confidence. Suffice it to say, however, “everyone is afraid of losing their job.”

In the wake of her firing, conservatives quickly noted that her Mandalorian co-star Pedro Pascal, who plays bounty hunter and main protagonist Din Djarin, was not similarly disciplined for a 2018 tweet containing a far more inflammatory Holocaust analogy, comparin the Trump administration to Nazi Germany over the former’s policy of temporarily separating minors from illegal border crossers (while using a photo that was actually of Palestinian children in a food line):

Shapiro asked Carano about the apparent double-standard, which she acknowledged but stressed does not impact her friendship with Pascal.

“I adore him,” she says. “I know he’s said and done some hurtful things … but I know that, you know, he thinks a lot of the stuff that I post, y’know, like, but there’s so much love there still, you know? And we had an agreement after we realized we were a little bit politically different. We had an agreement that — first and foremost — you’re a human being. And you’re my friend first.”

“I love that we’re just both passionate, you know?” Carano said. “And we just, we think a little bit differently … through our different experiences. I know that we both have misstepped on our tweets. We’re not perfect. We’re human beings, but he’s not a bad human being. He’s a sweet person.”

Nevertheless, she says the hostility she’s received has taken its toll.

“I’ve been called so much,” she says. “I’ve been called ‘racist,’ I’ve been called ‘transphobe,’ I’ve been called ‘homophobe,’ I’ve been called now ‘anti-semitic,’ and I’m like, I don’t take those lightly. Like you’re calling me, my soul, the blood that runs through me, you’re calling me that … you say that once to me, like, you’re done. I don’t want to talk to you ever again.”

This is despite the fact, she says, that “my actions towards other human beings have spoken for themselves … I am the one that, on sets, people come and cry to. I’m the one that sticks up for someone … like, ‘Hey, this is enough, this person needs out of this, like, they can’t breathe.’ And I’ve always been like that. I’ve stuck up for, like, minorities everywhere. I’ve gotten in fistfights. I’ve been in actual fights growing up in Las Vegas because I cannot stand bullying.”

“My body still is shaking, you know? It’s still devastating,” Carano admits. “But the thought of this happening to anybody else, especially, like, somebody who could not handle this the way I can? No. They don’t get to do that. They don’t get to make people feel like that.”

That, she says, is what keeps her going: “If I buckle, then little girls and little boys, who are not getting … a good fair shake at growing up right now, if I buckle, it’s going to make it okay for these companies who have a history of lying to be lying, and to do this to other people. And they’ve done it to other people and — and I’m not going down without a fight.”

Following Carano’s firing, the Daily Wire announced it had partnered with the actress to have her produce and star in an all-new film, as part of the conservative media outlet’s foray into non-Hollywood entertainment.