Xander Berkeley (born Alexander Harper Berkeley on December 16, 1955) is an American actor who portrayed Captain Gilad Pellaeon in a 2023 episode of the live-action series The Mandalorians third season. He later reprised the character in the 2024 animated anthology Star Wars: Tales of the Empire.
Xander Berkeley was born as Alexander Harper Berkeley on December 16, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. He is an American actor, painter, sculptor, and writer. Berkeley portrayed the Imperial Captain Gilad Pellaeon in "Chapter 23: The Spies," the seventh episode of the Disney+ original series The Mandalorians third season that premiered on April 12, 2023.
Gilad Pellaeon is portrayed by Xander Berkeley in The Mandalorian.
To bring Pellaeon to life in live-action, albeit in hologram form, Berkeley shaved his beard but retained his mustache, aligning with the character's depiction in the Star Wars Legends storytelling. Expressing his lifelong dream of joining the Star Wars universe and his hopes of reprising his role in the future, Berkeley thanked everyone involved in the series and shared his portrayal of Pellaeon from The Mandalorian—alongside an illustration of the character from the 2009 reference book The Essential Atlas—on social media.
Berkeley's portrayal of Pellaeon in The Mandalorian was praised by author Timothy Zahn, who originally created the character for his 1991 novel Heir to the Empire. The actor later voiced Pellaeon in the animated anthology Star Wars: Tales of the Empires second episode, "The Path of Anger," released on May 4, 2024.
- The Mandalorian — "Chapter 23: The Spies"
- Star Wars: Tales of the Empire — "The Path of Anger"