HOLLYWOOD – Grogu, the baby-faced alien who stole the hearts of Star Wars fans around the world with his debut role as Baby Yoda in the hit Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, is looking to shed his innocent façade and take on more age-appropriate roles.

After three seasons of stealing the limelight from costar Pedro Pascal, Grogu said The Mandalorian and Grogu, Disney’s upcoming Star Wars film featuring the iconic duo, will be his last time playing the character.

“He was 50 years old when he was cast as a nameless character on the show,” said Peter Mulgrew, Grogu’s agent. “Admittedly, he looks better at 50 than most of us look in our 30s, but he felt a little disappointed when fans began calling him a baby; he felt it diminished his character and put him in the shadow of Yoda, one of his greatest influences and the driving force behind why he got into acting in the first place.”

Mulgrew also said Grogu was grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Star Wars universe and has nothing but respect for Pedro, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni and everyone else involved in making The Mandalorian such a success.

“Any actor would kill to be a part of the Star Wars universe and Grogu understands he’s incredibly fortunate to have been given this opportunity,” said Mulgrew. “But at the end of the day, he doesn’t want his legacy to be boiled down to a single character whose only lines involved some incoherent babbling and waving his arms around, relying on special effects for something special to happen.”

Grogu isn’t the first Disney star to leave the entertainment giant to try and give themselves more creative freedom over the kinds of characters they play. Selena Gomez, Nick Jonas, and Miley Cyrus are just a few of today’s biggest celebrities who got their start in the Mickey Mouse brand but achieved real fame after they left.

“You know, I’m really thankful that I started on Disney. I got the most intense training,” Cyrus said in a 2014 interview. “I feel really lucky—a lot of kid stars get all crazy or stuck in what they were, so they can’t actually become what they’re meant to be … When I was on Disney, the thing that gave me the most anxiety was not knowing what to do with myself when Disney wasn’t there to carry me anymore. And now I’m free … and I’m fine.”

“It’s all part of my story. I’m growing and changing,” Gomez told the New York Times in 2015. “I knew deep down that this wasn’t what I wanted to do—being exhausted of forcing something that wasn’t right. I had to have moments where I was crying and I was like, ‘Why am I not in love with what I do?’ I was forced to get very uncomfortable for a while in order to make the decisions I made.”

Grogu said he’s not sure where his path will take him post Disney, but after filming for The Mandalorian and Grogu wraps, he plans on spending time with his family on his home planet and taking advantage of humanity’s lack of interstellar travel to lay low and out of the spotlight for a while.

Although he doesn’t know how long his hiatus will last, Hollywood executives have already sent his agent several projects for him to consider.

“Most actors can only dream of this level of success,” said Mulgrew. “We’ve already received guarantees from some of the biggest producers in Hollywood for roles in projects like the upcoming reboot of The Adventures of Pluto Nash, a recurring character on the next Star Trek series, and the lead in a currently unnamed police procedural series on Fox.”

If history teaches us anything, it’s that overnight success isn’t always great for the mental health of the actor. We’ve seen too many rising stars fall victim to their own fame and never recover. We may be sad to see Grogu step away from our screens while he contemplates his future, but we’ll sure be happy for when he returns, knowing he’s in a good place mentally and physically.

The Mandalorian & Grogu is set to begin production in 2024 and will lead Lucasfilm’s ongoing development of the Star Wars film universe to include films helmed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, and Dave Filoni, who is also currently developing Ahsoka Season 2, among those in the works.

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