The showrunner behind the Star Wars Original series, debuting June 4 on Disney+, talks about her film influences and love of Legends lore.
Like a red lightsaber zinging through a serene forest, the first teaser for The Acolyte has arrived.
“Vernestra Rwoh opening a door might be my favorite part of the trailer,” showrunner Leslye Headland tells StarWars.com. “It's like ‘What's up? Listen, I haven't opened a door in 100 years,’” Headland says with a laugh.
The mystery-thriller, which debuts June 4 on Disney+, upends the typical Jedi hero tale for a story focused on the dark side disrupting a Jedi Order in its prime. And Headland can’t wait to show us more.
The creator of the newest Star Wars live-action series first discovered the galaxy far, far away as a teenager watching the Special Editions on the big screen and immersing herself in the expanded universe of books, like Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire. “I think it just meant so much to me because it was a place to live, a place to escape to,” Headland says. “Not just the media, but…George [Lucas] had given you enough signposts that it's almost like Narnia. You could just go [into the Star Wars galaxy] and live there. And then you just have to come out of the wardrobe at some point and go to class.”
When she landed the job to tell her own Star Wars story with The Acolyte, Headland got a tattoo of Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art of Princess Leia Organa on her right hand. The ink served as a constant reminder of where the galaxy began as she penned her own unique tale. As Headland talks on a recent morning, the small Leia on her right hand moves in a flurry of exhilaration. It’s impossible for her to contain her joy as fans take their first steps into the larger world of The Acolyte.
The underdog versus the institution
The teaser trailer features stunning fight choreography as series star Amandla Stenberg’s character Mae faces off first with Carrie-Anne Moss as Master Indara and then Lee Jung-jae’s Master Sol. On set, the trio’s skill, coupled with the support of the stunt team, was captivating. “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!” Headland says. “The way that they challenged themselves, they understood that it was important, emotionally, for the audience to see their faces.”
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. Given that the era of the High Republic is a time free of galaxy-embroiling wars, Headland chose to focus her storytelling on more personal conflicts and smaller one-on-one battles to reveal the new characters on-screen.
Set during the era of the High Republic, The Acolyte will begin to unravel how an esteemed organization like the Jedi Order could be in its golden age and also on the cusp of the chaos that unfolds in the Skywalker saga. “If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution,” Headland says. “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.” Headland wanted to explore further back, when seeing a Sith seemed as likely as encountering a velociraptor. “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.”
With a darker tone focusing on the duality that exists beyond the simplistic black-and-white view of good versus evil, The Acolyte asks a key question before the fall of the Jedi: “What went wrong?” Headland asks. “And if the bad guys are actually the underdog, it just seemed like a cool reversal.”
Legends and other lore
Beyond the other film influences, Headland has infused her love of the original films, current books, and Legends lore into the story. “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,” Headland says. She first fell in love with the species when Rystáll Sant joined the Max Rebo Band in the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi. “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,” she adds with a laugh. The series will introduce a Zygerrian Jedi and canonize one species that’s yet to be seen, Headland reveals. “There are a couple of really big EU ideas that are utilized both early on in the series and later in the series,” she hints.
Fans of the best-selling High Republic books and comics that kicked off the era will recognize Mirialan Jedi Vernestra Rwoh, played by actor Rebecca Henderson. The character makes her live-action debut about 100 years older than the teenage prodigy we first met in The High Republic. “I'm just so excited for people to see her in this show because she is so different,” Headland says. “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.”
As the first live-action interpretation of the High Republic era, Headland hopes it will be a welcome entry point for newcomers, whether or not they’ve read the books or watched other Star Wars series. “You don't need to know too much to enter the story,” she says.
In fact, like Sol notes in the trailer, our eyes may well be deceiving us. “This is very incendiary,” Headland says before signing off, a glimmer of mischief in her eye. “But whatever you think The Acolyte is, it’s not that. It's a drop in the bucket, baby. Just hang in there and check it out.”
