Maul was trained by Darth Sidious and debuted in The Phantom Menace, where he is shown killing Qui-Gon Jinn before being sliced in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, he survived with sheer hatred in his heart and built a cybernetic lower body before founding the Shadow Collective criminal syndicate. Maul - Shadow Lord is set around one year after the end of the Clone Wars and during the early Imperial Era.
In an interview with ScreenRant's Ash Crossan, actor Sam Witwer, who's known for Smallville and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, spoke about his role as Maul in the new animated Star Wars series, and how the team worked around introducing the complex character to an audience who may be entirely unfamiliar with Maul. Also, Witwer highlighted exactly what Maul was feeling during the action-packed finale episode of the series.
Sam Witwer: "We would like to invite new fans to the table. We would like people who've never seen Star Wars to engage with this show. And we believe with the Lawson character, we can do that.
Remember on Star Trek, you have Kirk and Spock, then you have Bones. And so they'll beam in and out, and Bones is like, "What's this transporter thing? I don't know what this is. I don't want to do that." And then something will happen, and the Klingons, he's like, "Oh, the Klingons, what's that about?" And you had a grounded character who was skeptical about everything. Han Solo is another example. He was looking around like, "I don't know about space wizards and laser swords. I don't care about any of that."
You have these characters that ground Star Wars, right? So how do you do a Maul show? Well, you really do need to assume that the audience doesn't know this character. I think the wisest choice. And Matt crafted it perfectly where you see him through Lawson's eyes, but the conceit was that we were always going to get to a point where eventually we were going to do the deepest dive on Maul, right? But we had to work up to it."
Witwer highlights the comparisons between Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord's character Brander Lawson (voiced by Wagner Moura) and Star Trek character Bones. Lawson was created specifically for the new series and is used as a kind of narrative tool to help a whole new audience understand exactly who Maul really is, and that Lawson helped build up the general understanding of the surroundings and the characters themselves.
Witwer continued in his explanation of the final episode, as well as the series as a whole, specifically the build-up to the eighth episode of season 1.
Sam Witwer: "So by the time we got to run 1x08, the discussion was, all right, well, he just watched a guy who looks just like Savage Opress die in exactly the same way that Savage Opress died by the men who worked for the man who killed him.
If I'm Maul, there's no way around it. This is going to cause... And I lost to these guys, lost to people that Maul should absolutely have trounced according to Maul. Unfortunately, that knee kick from Doki has created a complication that ended up hurting the entire effort.
So the first discussions were that this character is going to blow. If you're going to be truthful to the character, he's going to have a meltdown. So then the next discussions were: Perhaps this is our opportunity to complete the journey for the new audience members about who this character is and who he was. So that's where it started, really, is those discussions.
And I will say that it went from more of an audio journey to a very visual thing when Dave came in, and he'd ask the question like, "Why not see Sidious?" "Really?" He's like, "Yeah, do it." So I hope I'm not telling too much here."
Seeing a breakdown of how Witwer determined Maul's utter anguish and frustration at losing a battle that he should've won gives a real insight into the mindset behind the character himself, as the battle led to a Dark Side vision where Maul saw Sidious. Darth Sidious (Palpatine) and Maul have a tragic and volatile relationship as Sidious abducted, abused, and betrayed Maul, leading him on a lifelong quest for vengeance.
Episode 8 shows Maul's tragic past from a more psychological standpoint, with a traumatic flashback to his younger years showing himself and his brother, Savage Opress. Maul is taken away by Sidious, who then tortures Maul with Force lightning during his Sith training, which highlights a sense of sadness and remorse for the character.
In the final episode of Maul - Shadow Lord, Maul has a confrontation with Star Wars legend Darth Vader, which gives Maul an insight into Sidious, who had taken on another apprentice after Count Dooku. Maul was previously oblivious to Vader's existence, and now has to face off against a new foe before even getting to his ultimate goal of destroying Darth Sidious once and for all.
Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord is available to stream on Disney+.
Release Date April 6, 2026
Network Disney+
Directors Brad Rau
English (US) ·