Following the release of the first official trailer for Star Wars: The Acolyte, showrunner Leslye Headland is making the rounds to talk about the show and give some insight into some interesting tidbits behind the scenes.
Starting off the round of interviews, Headland spoke with StarWars.com (hey, how do we get a chance to talk to Leslye Headland?) about the show and the difference between it and George Lucas’ take on Star Wars.
“If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution. I was so interested in a storyline where the Jedi were at the height of their power — and I don’t mean The Phantom Menace, because at that point, there’s a Sith Lord in the Senate that they’re not picking up on. Like it’s a thing I’ve heard of, but it’s not a thing that you would ever consider you’d be interacting with.”
The series is a love letter to some of Headland’s favorite martial arts sagas and samurai films, like Come Drink with Me and Yojimbo, with a fighting style crafted after wushu. Headland goes on to discuss her surprise at the ability of actors Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, and Carrie-Anne Moss (along with the stunt team) to do much of the hand-to-hand combat scenes and fights.
“I was really impressed. Carrie-Anne Moss, Amandla Stenberg, and Lee Jung-jae — he really blew me away with how much of his own action he did! The way that they challenged themselves, they understood that it was important, emotionally, for the audience to see their faces.”
Headland revealed that she grew up reading Star Wars adventures in the Extended Universe and that we will see many Easter eggs and things from the EU that we haven’t seen in Star Wars live action yet.
“There were certain things that I really wanted to do. You’ll see a half Theelin, half human Jedi, Jecki, played by Dafne Keen, which was always a dream of mine. There’s also some EU lore that I decided to put in because I thought it was so cool and no one told me I couldn’t. There are a couple of really big EU ideas that are utilized both early on in the series and later in the series.”
The Acolyte will be the first time fans will get to see the High Republic character Vernestra Rwoh in live action. The character is played by Rebecca Henderson. Headland said her favorite part of the trailer was when Rwoh opened the door with the wave of her hand.
“I’m just so excited for people to see her in this show because she is so different. She’s very rarely in the mission robes adventuring and dreaming. I think, as the show goes on, you’ll understand why. She has seen so much and she is so in-tune and in love with the Force. Here she’s much more of a high-ranking official. The other Jedi revere her. I’m just really excited for people to see her in this show and to see the performance.”
Next up on the circuit was Collider. The site asks about the footage from this first trailer and if it was just taken from the first few episode or a little something from every episode.
It’s from a lot of episodes. It’s not from a whole series, but I would say it’s from 4 to 5 episodes.
Collider asks about the scene at the end of the trailer where the Jedi all pull out their lightsabers. He asks if that scene is a one-off in the series or will that be the norm for the Jedi throughout…
I think what I could say about that, without spoiling anything, is that when I was thinking about the Jedi in this particular era, I thought that they wouldn’t pull out their lightsabers very often, in this era. There aren’t battle droids to fight, there isn’t a Darksaber. It exists at this point, but it’s definitely not around. So why would they pull their sabers? They would only pull their sabers if they felt like they were really being threatened. And so what I can say is that they are very threatened at that moment, when they pull them out.
I highly recommend checking out both StarWars.com and Collider to read the entire interview to get even more information than what is talked about here. If you are on the fence about watching this show, maybe one of these interviews will sway you one way or the other. In any case, will you be watching Star Wars: The Acolyte? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
