Local Actor/Former Marist Student Has Role in New Disney+ Series

A Hudson Valley actor is pinching himself after scoring the role of a lifetime.

Disney launched its new streaming service this week. In just the first day Disney+ drew over ten million subscribers. The service offers unlimited streaming of Disney's biggest films from Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and more. In addition to blockbuster movies and TV shows, subscribers can also view exclusive original content.

One of the most anticipated shows from Disney+ is The Mandalorian. As the first live-action Star Wars series. the show tells the story of a bounty hunter five years after the events of The Return of the Jedi. Appearing in a Star Wars series is every fan's dream, and Hudson Valley resident, Dominic Pace is living it.

Pace plays Gekko, a mysterious bounty hunter with a badass helmet and breathing tubes. As of now, that's really all we know about this character, but on his Twitter feed, the former Marist student promises that we will learn more in future episodes.

The local actor sat down for an interview with the Star Wars fan site, Fantha Tracks, and told them that he started his career staring as Danny Zucco at his high school in Ossining. Eventually, Pace enrolled at Marist College, but during his Freshman year, he realized that the stage was calling, so the student dropped out and decided to pursue acting full time.

After a decade of picking up small roles here and there, Pace started landing guest roles in national TV shows. Not in any position to turn down work, the actor accepted a job for a new series called "Huckleberry." The show was working on developing costumes and makeup for the show and needed an actor to come in to help. After putting on his costume and heading down a long hallway Pace started looking around and noticed some familiar-looking photographs on a wall. That's when the life-long Star Wars fan says his hands went "numb" when he realized he was being considered for the new Star Wars project.

If you want to get a peek of Pace's character, you'll have to look carefully at the first episode of the Mandalorian. During the cantina scene, towards the beginning of the episode, the actor's masked character, Gekko, can be seen way in the background behind two Trandoshans.

disneyplus.com

All that's known of Gekko now is that he is a bounty hunter. Whether he winds up being a friend or foe to the main character still remains a mystery. But it's certain that more will be revealed about Gekko in the coming weeks, so we will all just have to wait to find out what happens to this bad-ass looking bounty hunter lurking in the background. New episodes of The Mandalorian will airt this and every Friday on Disney+.

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