Star Wars: The Acolyte seems like it'll be a unique entry in the Star Wars canon for a few different reasons: for one, it tells a Sith-focused story in a galaxy full of Jedi. But also, creator, director, producer, and showrunner Leslye Headland wants to ask the hard questions.
Celebrating the release of The Acolyte's debut trailer, Headland sat down with IGN to discuss how the show has progressed since its last outing at Star Wars Celebration 2023 and how the rest of the Star Wars universe has influenced her.
Headland also explained why she thinks The Acolyte is very different from other Star Wars Disney+ shows like The Mandalorian and Andor, if she thinks it could be expanded with another season or film, and what it means to be the first woman to showrun a live-action Star Wars series.
IGN: What have you been up to since we last heard from The Acolyte at Star Wars Celebration 2023?
Leslye Headland: We were actually still filming when Celebration happened. We finished filming and then the production process started, which is really, really interesting, to go from, first you shot all this stuff, but what goes in, what stays out. And then the whole visual effects (VFX) experience, which I had not done before, was absolutely incredible. I just had such a blast doing it. Getting to mix at Skywalker Ranch was a dream come true.
"In that era, what does the underdog look like? Even if they’re the bad guy.
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It’s almost like a sprint when you’re shooting and then it’s a little bit more of a marathon when you’re getting into the postproduction. I had a really good time and I’m really in love with the show. It was definitely not out of hardship to keep watching it so many times.
The trailer opens with flashes of Prequel Trilogy themes with the Jedi Temple, followed by Original Trilogy themes with the cantina, before cutting into your own style. Which other Star Wars films and TV shows influenced you?
All the ones you just mentioned. Obviously a lot of our Coruscant stuff is prequel-based. It was a challenge but we wanted to utilize practical sets for Coruscant and that meditation room that you see, we wanted to do it justice but also have it feel real and tactile. Definitely the large amount of Jedi you see in the trailer I think is very reminiscent of the Prequel Trilogy, though we don’t have any Attack of the Clones-level scenes.
I think you’re seeing the Jedi when they are this very, very large institution - a benevolent one - but they are closer to who they are in the Phantom Menace than obviously in the Original Trilogy where you feel like they’re almost extinct. In a weird way, in the Phantom Menace and the Prequel Trilogy, the Jedi outnumber the Sith. And then in the Original Trilogy, the Empire outnumber the Jedi, which is why a show based on the “bad guys” is interesting to me. In that era, what does the underdog look like? Even if they’re the bad guy.
But also, The Clone Wars [inspired The Acolyte], a lot being inspired by Nightsisters. We don’t have any Nightsisters in this show, but being inspired by them, being inspired by Asajj Ventress. My favorite episode is The Wrong Jedi. I definitely took some inspiration from that.
We kind of ran the gambit: "Let’s reference Return of the Jedi here, let’s reference this holding cell based on a Clone Wars episode here, let’s have a Cantina," because I’ve always wanted one. I think when you get an opportunity to do a Star Wars and you’re a Star Wars fan, the idea is to get in a lot of your wish list. And hopefully other people are excited by it too.
Despite these influences, you’ve also spoken about challenging the Star Wars universe. Do you think The Acolyte bears resemblance to other shows like The Mandalorian or Andor or do you think it’s unique?
I think it’s very different. We’ve utilized practical sets much more so than the other shows. And part of that just came out of necessity and part of it was a creative choice. We utilized action in a way that I would say… You see action a lot in the other shows but I would say that because of the influence of samurai, musha, and martial arts films, they become part of the storytelling as opposed to an action sequence. I think that’s something that’s a little different. Each fight tells you a little bit more about the characters. I think stylistically that’s how they’re different.
I’m also not sure how Jedi-centric the other shows are. Obviously Ahsoka is. But we’re looking at the Jedi as an institution, as a concept, as an entity that has amassed a lot of power. And that’s good, I’m not saying that’s wrong. But I do think that when Jodie Turner-Smith has that line at the end of the trailer, when she says, “It’s not about good or bad, this is about power and who’s allowed to use it," really I think that’s the question we’re asking. That’s really the question. It’s not, "Is somebody good, is somebody bad?" There’s an imbalance. Someone might be imbalanced morally, but if there’s a power imbalance, how does that affect the power of Star Wars? And we’ve never seen the good guys outnumber the bad guys to this extent. I guess that’s how it’s different.
Star Wars shows so far are fairly blatantly tied to other projects, but The Acolyte is set a long time before even The Phantom Menace. Does it have a start and stop story or is there room for it to connect to other films and TV shows later?
I think there’s absolutely room for it to grow. I think that especially nowadays… I’m just the kind of person where I want to make sure a season feels like a legitimately whole story, and I definitely pepper in a lot of like, “Here’s how it could go this way, it could go that way."
"I think there’s absolutely room for it to grow... I’m just the kind of person where I want to make sure a season feels like a legitimately whole story.
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I also don’t want to leave the audience hanging emotionally. I want to leave them hanging narratively but emotionally, I want them to feel like they’ve watched a whole thing, and then still have a bunch of questions at the end like, “Wait, now that I’ve learned this relationship exists, what’s going to happen with those people, and now that this person has this type of power, what are we going to do about that?” So I think it can definitely have some of that.
We borrowed a lot from The High Republic in terms of the costuming. We thought it was really, really cool to start with what we called temple robes, which in The High Republic they’re always used. But we thought it would be interesting if the white robes were the temple look, then the classic brown robes that we’ve seen them in so often were the “mission robes," that when you go out in the world this is what you wear. But usually the Jedi are wearing white in this era because they’re never getting dirty. They’re really not out there. They’re not getting into a lot of skirmishes. And obviously we also have Vernestra Rwoh from the High Republic novels. She’s an integral part of the show and also a nice link bringing those two together.
You’re the first woman to create a live-action Star Wars show. Can you explain how important that is, and if diversity was a big focus while casting too?
What I’d say is I’m very proud to be the first woman to create, produce, direct, and showrun a Star Wars series. Obviously Deborah Chow directed Obi-Wan, and many, many women have contributed to the films. But to be the person at the center of the narrative, the word that’s coming to mind is it’s a real honor. It’s so special to me. I think it’s a thing that is rare, and the fact I get to be that person that is doing that, I think is a testament to how much I love Star Wars, and how I would not stop until I got to make one. So it’s a testament to that, and it’s a testament to tenacity, and it’s also a testament to how much I love this world and how honored I am to be working on it.
I think with the cast, honestly they were just all the people that I wanted. I saw Squid Game, and I had written this character, and I had no idea who to cast, and I had no idea who was going to be able to play all of these different levels and then I thought [about] Squid Game and I was like, “that’s the guy, that’s him. I don’t know how I get in touch with this person, I don’t know if they want to perform in English." To me, it became so clearly [Lee Jung-jae's] part, as opposed to [casting him for] the fact he’s a Korean movie star. And then when I worked with him I was like, “this is the best actor I’ve ever worked with." Watching him perform in English for the first time, and tracking the emotional beats, doing so much of his own action. Obviously we had an amazing stunt team that did the stunts. He did so much of his own action, which I had no idea he could do.
And then, somebody like Dafne Keen, I’d loved so much in Logan that, I wrote this character, and I was like, “you know what would be great, I’d love to see X-23 with a lightsaber. How do we make that happen?"
So, that’s what I would say about the diversity of the cast. Mostly they were people that were essentially my first choice. I wrote this part that Charlie Barnett played, who I worked with on Russian Doll. This doesn’t give too much away about the character, but he’s such an A+ student. He’s like, an A+ Jedi. And that’s Charlie in real life. He’s such a good actor, and he just wants to be really good. So when it came time to casting that character, you know who would be just perfect is Charlie. I’ve seen him just do whatever it takes to get the scene.
The Acolyte debuts on Disney+ on June 4.
This interview has been lightly edited for the sake of clarity and conciseness.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
