Yahoo Sports “The Acolyte ”creator breaks down the first trailer for her ‘underdog’ Sith story
"Star Wars" showrunner Leslye Headland opens up about Amandla Stenberg’s action skills and bringing the High Republic into live-action.
Star Wars is going back in time.
After months of buzz, Disney has finally dropped the first trailer for Star Wars: The Acolyte, the highly-anticipated live-action show starring Amandla Stenberg and Lee Jung-jae. Set an even longer time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the show takes places about a century before the events of The Phantom Menace, when the Jedi order ruled the cosmos and the Sith had yet to rise to power.
Speaking to EW ahead of the trailer’s launch, creator Leslye Headland explained that she’s long wanted to tell an “underdog” story, exploring the rise of everyone’s favorite red-lightsaber-wielding baddies.
“I really wanted to tell a story about the Sith,” explains Headland, best known for creating the Netflix hit Russian Doll. “That was kind of my dream Star Wars idea. But it felt like the time period to do that in would be something pre-Phantom Menace. That seemed to be the most interesting trajectory for the Sith: How did the Sith go from the Rule of Two and being quote-unquote ‘extinct’ to Palpatine coming into power without the Jedi knowing about it?”
Most live-action Star Wars stories are set during or after the fall of the Jedi order, but The Acolyte finds the galaxy’s peacekeepers at the height of their powers. The series is set during the tail end of the High Republic, an era that’s often been explored in Star Wars books and comics but never before in live-action.
The trailer opens with Lee’s Jedi master instructing a group of younglings, in a time that seems peaceful. But there’s danger lurking around the galaxy, especially when a number of Jedi turn up dead. The result is a sprawling crime story that explores the classic pull of Light versus Dark.
“If the Jedi are this benevolent institution at this point,” Headland adds, “then anyone who opposes them would be the underdog.”
The Hate U Give star Stenberg headlines The Acolyte as an unnamed warrior who gets entangled in the mystery. Headland explains that she wanted to center her story on a morally gray protagonist, one who doesn’t fit neatly into the Sith or Jedi boxes. (She’s also fairly handy with a knife, even when facing an opponent with a lightsaber.)
“I loved the idea of a character that was unknowable in her goodness or badness,” Headland adds. “Strategically, my costume designer Jennifer Bryan and I talked a lot about how George Lucas utilized color and how purple was a color you didn’t see very often. Palpatine wears it, but it’s that idea that blue and red make purple.”
In the trailer, Stenberg’s character faces off against a Jedi played by Matrix alum Carrie-Ann Moss in a brutal fight. Headland wanted the show to showcase elements of wuxia martial arts and the classic samurai films that originally inspired George Lucas, and she praises Stenberg (who uses she/they pronouns) for her jaw-dropping action skills.
“We used to call Amandla Bruce Lee because she was too fast,” Headland says with a laugh. “We had to keep saying, ‘You have to slow down! The camera’s not picking up that it’s you! You look like your stunt double!’”
The starry cast also includes Manny Jacinto, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo (who appeared as Chewbacca in the sequel trilogy and is here playing a new Wookiee Jedi). Rounding out the cast are Charlie Barnett and Logan star Dafne Keen, both playing Jedi.
“Charlie, I worked with on Russian Doll, and I was like, ‘We have to get Dafne, period,’” Headland explains. “I just wanted to see X23 with a lightsaber in their hand. That has to happen.”
Of course, the first trailer is packed with plenty of Star Wars hallmarks, including strange creatures, distant planets, and impressive lightsaber fights. But Headland says the story ultimately hinges on the “complicated” history between Stenberg’s character and Lee’s, describing it as a complex, almost father-daughter-like relationship.
“I think with Star Wars, it always starts with some sort of underdog versus the institutional threat, or it’s a fraught familial issue that needs to be resolved,” she adds. “I think both of those appear in this show — just in ways that are turned on their head.”
The Acolyte debuts June 4 on Disney+. Watch the trailer above.
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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
