It's still early December, but it's safe to predict that this season will be Baby Yoda Winter. The breakout star of Disney+'s The Mandalorian is all the internet can talk about these days, almost as if we've pooled all of our emotions about 2019 into one bundled up little creature sipping a bowl of soup. But the greatest Baby Yoda content so far has arguably come from our queen, actress Laura Dern.
On Monday, Variety posted a puzzling video, in which reporter Marc Malkin asks Dern, who plays Admiral Holdo in the new Star Wars trilogy, whether or not she's seen Baby Yoda. "Yes, I did," she answered confidently. "I think he was at a basketball game."
Laura Dern says that she saw #BabyYoda at a basketball game: "That's all I'm going to say" pic.twitter.com/i87ves5tn4
— Variety (@Variety) December 3, 2019
Dern and Malkin stared at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time before she coyly followed up with, "That's all I'm gonna say." Then, as if this added any clarity, she said, "It was NBA."
This left Malkin, along with the rest of the internet, a little confused.
Did she just not know who Baby Yoda was? Or did she think Baby Yoda was someone that he is not?
She probably thought it’s a rapper name 😂
— Nikki 🇺🇸❄️ (@nikki_bookworm) December 3, 2019
Memes of Baby Yoda casually attending an NBA game flooded Twitter. On Tuesday, Dern shared one, featuring NBA All-Star Paul George, on her Instagram page and wrote, "Paul George! You know the truth about it all. Thank God." Wait, does Laura Dern know something about Baby Yoda that we don't?
Then, on Wednesday, in the midst of the mystery, she shared a photo of herself and her Little Women co-star Timothée Chalamet on the jumbotron at a basketball game at Boston's TD Garden. "Caught a game to see if I could find him again. #BabyYoda," she wrote in the caption.
ESPN writer Tim Bontemps tweeted to say he ran into Dern at the game and asked her about her Baby Yoda remark, and she responded with, "Well, I love the NBA, so when I got asked about where I might see him I couldn’t help but say an NBA game. But he’s here. I saw him.”
— MicahW (@MicahW) December 5, 2019
What is going on?! Is Baby Yoda Timothée Chalamet? Is Timothée Chalamet Baby Yoda? Can his existence even be explained?
The Baby Yoda narrative isn’t always linear.
— Aaron Falk (@aaronfalk) December 5, 2019
Is Laura Dern so swept up in Baby Yoda fever that she is seeing Baby Yoda where Baby Yoda does not exist?
Then, at long last, a Twitter user named Robert Jurado shared a screenshot from the jumbotron of an actual baby next to an image of Baby Yoda on the "Lookalike Cam." While it hasn't been confirmed, one can reasonably assume that this was the Baby Yoda that Laura Dern saw.
But it's a testament to why we all love Laura Dern that she joined in on the joke and let us think she was a space cadet instead of just explaining that very simple fact.
Being able to laugh at yourself is, as far as we're concerned, what it means to be one with the Force. And for more on the upcoming Star Wars movie, check out J.J. Abrams Hints at Rey and Kylo Ren Romance and Twitter Explodes.
