At last week’s jam-packed Star Wars Celebration, attendees and those keeping up online got updates on a number of upcoming shows, including Andor Season 2, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew, in addition to the reveal of three live-action movies. But one of the more mysterious projects remains The Acolyte, a Star Wars show from Russian Doll showrunner Leslye Headland that’s set to debut sometime next year.
Those attending the convention were treated to a first look, which showed brief glimpses of characters played by Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-Jae, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Rebecca Henderson; a Jedi temple; younglings being trained; a showdown between Moss and Stenberg; and a pivotal shot of a group of Jedi standing with lightsabers. It ends with Jodie Turner-Smith saying “This is about power and who is allowed to use it.”
But that teaser wasn’t distributed online, meaning the vast majority of the world has seen next to nothing of The Acolyte. So here, IGN will cobble everything we got from the Star Wars Celebration panel and our exclusive sitdowns with Headland and the cast to try to paint a picture of this mysterious series.
The Plot and Place in the Timeline
Headland has previously revealed that The Acolyte takes place between the High Republic era and the prequels – specifically, about 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. That means it’s the furthest back in time we’ve seen Star Wars go on screen.
During the panel and interview with IGN, Headland elaborated further, saying it’s a story told from the perspective of the villains, at a time when “the bad guys are outnumbered.”
“When doing a Star Wars show that was going to be from the perspective of who we usually see as the villains, it made sense to set it during a time period where the Jedi were in power,” Headland told IGN. “That meant that it was a time of peace.”
That means there will be plenty of Jedi, which we learned a little bit about.
The Cast and Characters
Amandla Stenberg: Despite being the female lead in the series, Stenberg is among those we know the least about. Unlike a lot of the other characters, we don’t even know if she’s a Jedi, and she was shrouded in a cloak with only her eyes showing in the teaser. But here’s what she told IGN at Star Wars Celebration:
“What I love about Star Wars is how it delves into the complicated effects of power. And so we get to do that now, but within a point in the timeline that hasn’t been explored before, which is the High Republic era, and so that’s when the Jedi are at the height of their power. And so Leslye, I think extremely cleverly, has decided to tell a story about an assemblage of characters who are dealing with their own morality within the context of this particular point in society. And so my character is someone who is really struggling with those things.”
Lee Jung-Jae: Squid Game star Jung-Jae played perhaps the most prominent role in the trailer, and was previously revealed to be the male lead in the series. He’ll be portraying a Jedi Master.
“The most fun part of this character is the complexity of emotions and the depth and the layers,” he told IGN. “That’s the most interesting part… But as much of that emotion going on, I also feel immense pressure.”
Jodie Turner-Smith: Turner-Smith said she plays “a powerful character”: “My character is a powerful leader of women, and I do use the Force, but I’m not a Jedi or a Sith.”
Rebecca Henderson: She’ll be playing Vernestra Rwoh, a fan-favorite Mirialan who first appeared in Charles Soule’s novel Light of the Jedi. We’ll be seeing an older version of her in this series, however, as Henderson said she’ll be playing an Elder Jedi Master.
Charlie Bennett: He’ll be playing a human Jedi Knight.
“What I love about Star Wars is how it delves into the complicated effects of power.
Dafne Keen: Keen, who you might recognize from her young role in 2017’s Logan, will be playing a “little alien,” although she and Bennett specified during their interview with IGN that she’s actually part human, part alien. She teased that her prosthetics are pretty extensive, saying, “I have a forehead prosthetic that covers my eyebrows and I can’t move my eyebrows. And I’m a very expressive person, so acting without eyebrows has been a challenge.”
Manny Jacinto: Jacinto isn’t playing a Jedi, but he does seem to be closely connected to Bennett and Keen’s characters. He’s “just a guy trying to have a good time, basically,” Jacinto says (cue The Good Place comparisons).
“I get entangled into the High Republic and kind of this Jedi mission and whatever’s going on with them (Bennett and Keen), their whole deal,” he said. “I go along for the ride.”
Joonas Suotamo: Suotamo will be playing a Wookie, but not for the first time. He’s donned Chewbacca’s costume for recent movies like The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi, but we’ll get to know him as a different Wookie in The Acolyte – a Jedi, in fact, named Kelnacca.
Dean-Charles Chapman: He’ll be playing a Jedi, but didn’t reveal any further details.
One big remaining mystery is who The Matrix star Carrie-Ann Moss is playing; she did not attend Celebration and thus, did not reveal any further details about her character.
The Tone and Themes
During the panel, Headland said she pitched The Acolyte to Lucasfilm as “Frozen meets Kill Bill.” Explaining further to IGN, Headland talked about the Frozen of it all saying it was “so much of it was about the villainous – actually being a powerful, misunderstood woman.”
“It was hitting me on such a deep level and yet servicing the genre so well,” she said. “So I think that’s absolutely what the Acolyte does. It’s hitting a lot of very deep emotional moments, and yet, it is servicing exactly what you want from the genre from a Star War show.”
“I say Kill Bill because I think it’s a really good reference for the modern day martial arts films,” she went on. “Obviously, Tarantino took inspiration from a lot of the movies that our action team and a lot of our design team pulled from, which is stuff from the Shaw brothers to Akira Kurosawa in his samurai films, but also wuxia films like on Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Headland said during the panel, and further with IGN, that she’s taking inspiration from various Star Wars media as well. Speaking specifically, she said she was “very, very struck” by The Clone Wars episode The Wrong Jedi, where Ashoka is put on trial by the Jedi Council for crimes she did not commit, and Anakin must find a way to prove her innocence.
“It’s hitting a lot of very deep emotional moments, and yet, it is servicing exactly what you want from the genre from a Star War show.
She was also – and she acknowledged “this is going to sound strange, and maybe it’ll make sense when you see the show” – inspired by the scene in Solo with Darth Maul and Qi’ra.
But mostly, Headland said, she wanted to really “question the status quo” of the Star Wars galaxy, especially when it comes to the Jedi.
“As someone that voraciously consumes Star Wars media – everything from YouTube fan videos to actual the extended universe, just knowing everything I can possibly know about Star Wars – the stuff that interests me the most is honestly is when fans ask questions and they go, ‘Well, why would this happen this way?’ “ she said. “‘Why did Qui-Gon make the decision that he made? How did Darth Sidious become chancellor without Yoda, one of the most powerful Jedi who ever lived, knowing about it?’ I think that those are questions that were just all still hanging out there. So that’s where I think you start.”
For more exclusive content from Star Wars Celebration, check out our sitdowns with Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
