This articles contains spoilers for the second arc of the second season of “Andor.”

Senator Bail Organa from Alderaan has been a storied figure in the “Star Wars“ mythos from the very first installment in 1977, when Princess Leia Organa sent her holomessage recording to Obi-Wan Kenobi in his exile on Tatooine. It was the galaxy’s most desperate hour: Bail asked Leia to retrieve Obi-Wan Kenobi and invite him back into the fold of the Rebellion and bring the Death Star plans to the Rebel base. But Darth Vader captured Leia, and made an example out of Alderaan by using the Death Star to turn it into space dust. Bail Organa met his tragic end among the Alderaanian citizens during that explosion, and was never seen on screen in the 1977 film.

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The Bail Organa character wasn’t actually seen in the flesh until 2002’s “Attack of the Clones,” when he was played by actor Jimmy Smits. To that point, Smits might have been best known for his stint on the popular television shows “L.A. Law” and “N.Y.P.D. Blue,” but suddenly, he’d entered a galaxy far, far away. 

Set decades before “A New Hope,” “Attack of the Clones” gave Smits a chance to flesh out the character who would become Princess Leia’s adoptive father and a scion of the Rebellion against the Empire.

After his first appearance in “Attack of the Clones,” Smits returned in “Revenge of the Sith,” bearing witness to the end of the Jedi. After saving Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, he took on the adoption of Anakin Skywalker’s daughter, Leia … and that might have been the end of the character’s journey in “Star Wars.” Instead, it seemed like it might only be the end for Smits’ tenure as the character; Bail Organa appeared in the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” television series, but this time he was voiced by Phil LaMarr.

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After that, it didn’t seem as though there would be any more opportunities for more “Star Wars” storytelling, especially involving Bail Organa as a character, until George Lucas announced that he’d been in development on more films and would be selling Lucasfilm to Disney. This paved the way for Jimmy Smits to return to the role twice more — once on the big screen in 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and again on the 2022 Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” where the show finally explained one of the oldest relationships in all of “Star Wars.”

It would seem, though, that might truly be the end of the line for Jimmy Smits and his run playing the character. As of 2025’s second season of “Andor,” Senator Bail Organa has been recast again.

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A quiet surprise awaited fans watching the second season of “Andor” as we were re-introduced to Senator Bail Organa, but it wasn’t the familiar face of Jimmy Smits who greeted us. Instead, it was Benjamin Bratt. Bratt is probably best known for his roles in “Law and Order,” “Miss Congeniality,” and as the voice of Ernesto De La Cruz in Pixar’s “Coco.” But now he’ll be taking the mantle of “Star Wars” actor and Senator from Alderaan — though exactly how many more stories in live-action there are to tell with Bail Organa is anyone’s guess after “Andor.”

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Seeing Bratt in the role was a bit disorienting at first, but the filmmakers behind the show wisely gave us a cameo in an episode first to get audiences used to the change. By his next inevitable appearance (you knew a character this big wasn’t going to be relegated to only one minute of screen time), his mannerisms, voice, and gravitas, coupled with the Alderaanian garb and cape that could belong to no other, convince us wholly that he has fully embodied the role of Bail Organa. It ends up working perfectly, and in a show written as well as “Andor,” it’s hard to fault them for recasting him instead of writing such an important character out of the story entirely when Jimmy Smits wasn’t available for whatever reason (as of this writing, there’s been no reason provided for the switch).

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“Andor” season 2 airs new episodes weekly on Disney+.