The Big Picture

The Acolyte
concluded its first season with unexpected twists and bold storytelling choices, painting Sith characters as heroes while critiquing the flaws of the Jedi.
In our post-mortem with showrunner Leslye Headland, she delves into the character development process and influences behind The Stranger, emphasizing Manny Jacinto’s transformative performance.
Headland discusses her inspiration from films like
Come Drink With Me,
Dracula
, and more.

The first season of The Acolyte came to a pretty impressive end this week, as Osha (Amandla Stenberg) chose to stay and be trained by The Stranger (Manny Jacinto) after her turn to the dark side, while a mind-wiped Mae (Stenberg) was taken into custody by the Jedi and used as a pawn for Vernestra’s (Rebecca Henderson) scheme to pin the fallout from Brendok on Sol (Lee Jung-jae). The series took bold risks by making the proverbial villains the “heroes” of the story, while painting the Jedi out to be the flawed institution that they are, bringing something fresh and new into the Star Wars universe.

Following the finale, I caught up with showrunner Leslye Headland for the third time this season to unpack the Season 1 finale and look back at the series as a whole. We spoke at length about how she crafted each character, with a particular focus on The Stranger’s introduction and how Jacinto’s performance prompted a rewrite of the final episode, how Sol’s arc culminates in the ultimate “betrayal of the father,” why it was vital for Mae and Osha to essentially switch sides, the Darth Plagueis reveal, the Jane Austen-esque romance of Osha and The Stranger, the Dracula inspired lines that didn’t make the final draft, and what fans can do to ensure the series gets a Season 2 renewal. You can read the full hour and a half long interview below.

The Acolyte
The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.Release Date June 4, 2024 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1 Studio Disney+ Franchise Star Wars Expand

COLLIDER: I want to scream about the hand touching and just the visuals of that, but I also want to make everybody wait to read all the Oshamir stuff at the end of the interview.

LESLYE HEADLAND: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

In our first interview, you spoke a little bit about how The Stranger is sort of an avatar for you and a character that you gravitate towards, which I very much feel the same way about villainous characters, but I am really curious about how the character came together for you. Somewhere along the way, there was a mention that maybe he was more of a towards-the-end-of-the-season, end-of-Season-2 type of character, and then things got reorganized.

HEADLAND: I’ll start from the beginning. We always felt like the Sith of the show, right at the beginning, we were like, “He’s got to have some sort of cover. There’s some sort of cover story for him.” Even if we know it’s him, within the world of the show, other people have to underestimate him. So, the beginning of the character was Drunken Cat from Come Drink With Me, this master who’s essentially masquerading as this drunk.

Little by slowly, throughout the movie, Golden Swallow, the lead, underestimates him, and little by little, he’s feeding her information. He’s on her side. Then, when it’s revealed that he is this revered master, it is a striking change, like a completely different guy. Immediately, you realize that you’re dealing with somebody with great power who has the humility to hide himself as an idiot.

Of course, as we move to this second act of the season, he had to kill all the Jedi because the Jedi can’t know he exists. We knew he was gonna kill Jecki and Yord, we knew he was gonna kill all the Red Shirts, and he was gonna reveal himself not only as a revered warrior but as someone who is truly terrifying. We wanted this villain in a horror film kind of thing. We decided that Episode 5 was going to be Predator. That was the goal, you know, with the smile, and all of that was designed to make him feel not just evil or imposing but disturbing.

We knew he was going to be unmasked in that episode — we weren’t going to wait until the end to do it — and we wanted the bad guy to do bad things. Simple as that. He was not going to threaten to do bad things. When his helmet comes off, it was important that we didn’t have the classic helmet off and, “Hi, I’m gonna tell you about my evil plan.” We wanted it to be visceral, we wanted it to be violent.

Once he takes Osha in, like I told you before, it’s that Lo/Jen relationship. He’s this formidable fighter and terrifying villain, but it was like, okay, he has this other side. He has this other seductive, intentionally vulnerable, probing her for her own strength in the Force, pushing her to tap into the emotions she’s been suppressing. She tried it the Jedi way; we know that. So he’s leading her into this place, which had to be believable.

Initially, we weren’t gonna see him in Episode 6. In Episode 6, she was going to leave him, go and do her thing in the finale, and then return to him at the end of the last episode. I saw Manny [Jacinto]’s screen test in the helmet and in his cloak, I saw him learning his fight choreography, and I thought, “There will be riots in the streets if I do not end the show with him versus Sol.” That was clear. So I rewrote the ending of the show for Manny. [Laughs]

The power of Manny! It also works so well because he’s along for the ride and seeing all of these little things happening to Mae and Osha that I think then strengthens where things end up at the end.

HEADLAND: 100%. He has to be a witness to what she finds out about herself. It was very important that she had her own agency and that she made this decision independently of him. But I agree, him witnessing it draws them together so much more. So, it went: buffoon, terrifying villain, seductive possible teacher, and then romantic lead. [Laughs] So, I had to find somebody who could play all four characters — buffoon, murderer, a gentle teacher, and then as a romantic lead. You can imagine as I’m writing this, I’m just like, “Who the fuck are we gonna get for this part? Who is going to be able to do this?”

I obviously love The Good Place and saw Manny in Nine Perfect Strangers. It was during lockdown, and my wife and I were watching it, and he came on screen, and I was like, “Who is that?” My wife was like, “I don’t know,” and I was like, “Do we know that guy? Is he our friend? Is that how we know him?” We’re in the industry, she’s an actor, so I thought maybe we’re friends with that guy. Then, at some point during the episodes, his name came up, and I was like, “That’s Manny Jacinto? Are you fucking kidding me?” I know exactly where his face was — I will never forget the shot that I saw him, and I thought, “That’s fucking him.” Again, he has to play four parts. I don’t know how he did it, but it happened.

When you asked about why I relate with the character so much, when he reveals himself and makes his statement of purpose, I had to rewrite that scene many times because the villain outlining his plan is so ridiculous. Really, the ultimate version of that is Heath Ledger’s Joker. You’re never gonna hit that, but that’s the goal. So, when I was rewriting the scene with him, all the way up to shooting, I was on the treadmill being like, “What is he gonna say?!” And my wife, who is a huge part of my creative process, finally she said, “What do you wanna say? Stop thinking of it like you have to somehow tap into a different guy.”

And again, Manny was giving this incredible performance all through this, so I’m like, “How do I live up to this performance?” My wife was like, “What do you want to say?” I was like, “I wanna say that people don’t want me to exist as a gay woman, as a woman in this particular space, working in this wild sandbox.” There was a whole crew of people who believed in me, but deep down, I felt like, “I am unaccepted for who I am because of what I believe in and wanting to wield my power the way I’d like without having to answer to the legion of people that just exist out there.”

By the way, I think everybody feels this way. I think that’s why it resonates when you’re honest about yourself, and you get personal about it. When he says, “I want freedom,” that’s what I want. I just want freedom. I want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist I want to be without having to answer to anybody. That’s why I feel so close to him. I also feel like when I get in leadership positions, I do get very vulnerable; I’m not afraid to cry. You know what I mean? There’s this feeling [for] female directors that they can’t cry. I was like, “I’m gonna cry because this is my dream. I can’t believe we’re making this.” I am truly so impressed by everyone who has put their faith in me. That is why he represents the avatar.

I think that’s what makes villains so compelling because there is that little piece of every writer in the villains, kind of pushing an idea that they have harbored within them. The villain is a great proxy for getting those feelings out.

HEADLAND: Absolutely. I very rarely put myself into the protagonist because I think the protagonist has to be the protagonist. They might have a sprinkling of me, certainly Osha and Mae, the family conflict, the switching of sides, being really certain that you know one thing, the betrayal of the father, the rejection of the fraternal protectionism, and saying, “I am now my own person.” That stuff I definitely relate with, but The Stranger is my shadow self, for sure.

How ‘The Acolyte’ Kept Delivering the Most Epic Lightsaber Fights

I love that. I also love that you mentioned how vital it was to end up having that fight scene between The Stranger and Sol. The fight sequences in this show have been so incredible. Every episode, I’m like, “That was even better than the last one,” but I think this one was top-tier.

HEADLAND: I agree.

I want to know about the process of outdoing yourself every time. That’s what made these fight sequences so impressive.

HEADLAND: [Second unit director] Chris Cowan and I, we were shooting for immortality. We were like, “We are fucking going for it. We want to top Duel of the Fates, we want to top the train station in The Matrix. We will settle for nothing less.” I will leave it up to the viewer as to whether or not we achieved that, but in my heart of hearts, I was like, “We achieved that.” As far as I’m concerned.

You definitely did. I love the slow-mo moments in this. They were very The Matrix, like you just said. It’s there. I love the transitions from the sabers clashing to the girls hitting each other. It just worked so well.

HEADLAND: What I love about both of those sequences is obviously the artistry of it and what the stunt team did and the wire work, like you said, and all the slow motion, and Lee Jung-jae’s performance. He does all of his own action, and all of his expressions, the way that he conveyed both the confidence and the frustration of wanting to defeat this person.

But here’s the thing, on an emotional level for the audience, now having watched Episode 7, you’ve got the light side and the dark side, Jedi and Sith, but who are you rooting for? Am I finding myself now rooting for The Stranger, who I feel incredibly drawn to, who’s made himself literally exposed, and Sol, who has been hiding this thing? So, that sort of emotional impact of, like, “I hate what Sol did, but this is the bad guy! He’s got the red lightsaber. What am I supposed to do?”

With the girls, it’s similar. Who am I rooting for? I’m kind of rooting for Osha because I want her to restore her strength in the Force and tap into her negative feelings, but I’m also rooting for Mae because she was framed by everybody. She was on a quest to find justice in her own way, knowing that the institution would never hold these people accountable.

I really love how they do switch places, essentially. Where they are at the beginning and the end are completely inverted. How vital was it to get them into this inverted state, and does it sort of foretell where their arcs could potentially go in the future, as well?

HEADLAND: Absolutely. The challenge was, we’re gonna start with this former Jedi, and we’re gonna start with this aspiring Sith. They’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. We always knew that Mae was gonna end up with the Jedi — switch places — and Osha was gonna end up with the Sith. The difficult part was charting those story beats to get them there. What are the story beats to support these journeys? And I really feel like we achieved it. I really feel so compelled by the performances, especially Lee Jung-jae. He has to do it himself. Amandla [Stenberg] is kind of split and does it very, very subtly and emotionally charged, but how are we gonna get them there?

That’s also why I really felt that the memory-wipe was important, because I felt like Mae had to become completely docile, and then Osha had to embody this rage and despair. So, again, trying to get all of that to work took so much time and effort, and I cannot tell you how proud I am of our writers that they did that and that the actors were so game. Lee Jung-jae was like, “Got it.” He doesn’t speak English. The man does not speak English. He did it all phonetically, and he got it. People were like, “How did you direct somebody ESL?” And I said, “I didn’t.” That guy came in so prepared. He’s a movie star, and he just fucking did it, and I will be forever grateful to him for that.

How Sol’s “Betrayal of the Father” Is Juxtaposed With the Original Trilogy
Image via Disney+

What’s so interesting about that moment, where Osha kills Sol, is how much is conveyed even while he’s choking on his words. Also, and maybe this was my impression of it, but my first thought was, “He doesn’t even give her the agency to make this choice herself because he’s accepting his fate.” It just adds so much more insult to injury. You can’t even let her get a satisfactory kill because you’re like, “It’s okay.” It’s so good!

HEADLAND: We also knew that it was always going to be the betrayal of the father, and I knew we had to juxtapose Luke’s forgiveness and Vader’s redemption. We’re like, “This is a story about the Sith, so that’s not gonna happen.” You’re absolutely right. There’s this thing that’s called benign sexism, and part of it is this paternal protectionism — it seems like this good thing, but like you said, there’s this, “I have to protect you from everything. I have to make sure you’re okay. I have to tell you what track to get on, and then once you’re on that track, I need to support you.”

Ultimately, what happens is — again, this is a father-daughter relationship — as women evolve in their lives and develop their own personalities separate from their fathers, at some point, they have to reject that protectionism.

Again, I’m so proud of it. I have so many favorite moments in the show. I have, like, 100, and I’m happy to go through all of them right now. One of my favorite moments is when he says, “I did everything because I love–” He’s going to say, “I love you,” and not only is that a level of attachment that an unbalanced Jedi would have — he very clearly is losing it in the last half of the season — but that’s also the justification for that kind of behavior between the father and the daughter.

The daughter has to surpass him in some way. She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, “I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.” She has to do that.

I do think when he says, “It’s okay,” I think you’re right. He is imposing on her agency at that point. But I do think, in a weird way, she needed it. She needed his acceptance. Not his approval, but his acceptance of his fate, I think, is what gives her that energy to do the final fist clench.

While we’re talking about fist clenching, kyber bleeding? Oh my gosh!

HEADLAND: This was my dream. Again, we talked very early on in the writers’ room about bleeding a lightsaber because, to me, it’s a very intimate thing. In a weird way, it’s an earned thing. I talked to Pablo [Hidalgo] a lot. The crystal has to be exposed. She can’t hulk out and do it. We’ve seen it in Fallen Order, and the crystal comes right out, but we knew this is a moment — we don’t have time. [Laughs] It would be too premeditated. It has to happen in that moment.

Without getting too explicit, James Friend, who was the DP of that episode, when he shot looking into the lightsaber, we’ve always seen the lightsaber as a–

Phallic symbol.

HEADLAND: Exactly. You said it, not me. To look inside it, to look down it, to see it’s…

That’s such great, too, because that is something that was discussed around The Last Jedi, as well. There were a lot of people who talked about the “Moist Cave” and all of this self-discovery for Rey inside. There’s a lot of imagery that is just inherently baked into filmmaking for both genders and the way that it can be expressed in different forms of the Yin and the Yang, basically.

HEADLAND: Exactly. And to see this change and to see that it’s coming directly from. I mean, even when we were doing VFX, I was like, “Put veins in her hand.” I want this to be so visceral. I just think it’s so personal and intimate for her to bleed the lightsaber that way.

There’s so much beauty to it, too, because this is the weapon that killed her mother, and she’s now reclaiming it as her own and creating something completely new. There are so many layers to the visuals of that.

HEADLAND: Absolutely. Again, it comes down to the betrayal and the rejection of the father, the opposite of Luke and Vader. That’s the idea. It’s pretty simple. It’s something that I was hoping would subconsciously, or by osmosis. Because the first time she holds that saber, she’s a young girl. He’s gifting her with this idea. He’s gifting her with this dream. And you’re exactly right: that dream is also the thing that destroys her world when you’re a child. It’s also used for that. Then it becomes her own.

She takes it from him and claims it as her own. I just couldn’t resist making that three-act structure of it. I’m so proud of it. I wanted it to feel like the lightsaber had its own journey over the course of the season.

And it does. I picked up on that throughout the entire act of where it’s being passed along in the story. It works.

HEADLAND: I’m so glad you did. Did you like that she just went for The Stranger? [Laughs]

Yes! I was gonna get right into that. I love enemies-to-lovers who have held blades to each other and lightsabers to each other like that. That is my bread and butter. I really love that we get this moment where he goes to offer a gentle touch, and she’s like, “Psych!” [Laughs]

HEADLAND: “Get away from me.” Then it’s like this passing through, stepping over the threshold, that actually will bring them closer together, which is so interesting. But the motivation I gave to Manny in that moment — in theater, we would call it dramaturgically — for, “Why is he stepping over to do that,” because it said it in the script, was, “You have been in this position. If you have a red lightsaber, you have felt this level of despair, rage, and dejection. So go over there and let her know that you have had that experience.” And he just did that beautiful thing. I was like, “Jesus Christ.”

Something I also really liked about that moment is that killing somebody is a very violent act inherently and is usually met by further violence. Except in this case, when Osha kills Sol, she’s then met with compassion at every turn because The Stranger greets her very compassionately, and then with Mae, this is what pushes them to reconcile, and I think that is so beautiful.

HEADLAND: I agree. We had to sort of reshape that finale because of Manny. The bleeding of the lightsaber was always there, the reconciliation between the girls was always there, Sol’s death was always there. It’s just that it had to feel exactly the way that you’re describing, that it was the apex of the story, like the exclamation point at the end of the sentence that is the season.

How Osha’s Vision Plays Into Her Heritage With the Coven

I also love that at the beginning of the episode, she’s so convinced by this vision that she sees that she thinks that it is her sister who is going to be doing the killing, and then it ends up being that she kind of foretells her own impending future. I want to talk about that first scene. It’s very reminiscent of how her mother got into Torbin’s mind, like the exact same vibe. Is this something that she’s more inherently in tune to be able to do through her powers?

HEADLAND: Exactly. I wanted to demonstrate something visually that would support The Stranger’s argument that there was a strength within the Force or magic or whatever you wanna call it. It couldn’t just be this potential thing that was gonna show up later. It had to be something that we discover about her, he discovers about her. And I think to some extent, she understands that she’s felt this thing, she’s seen the future, so she also feels that. Again, I think it’s also very important in the stakes of the storytelling that you understand that she is a formidable candidate for him.

For example, when you apply for college, you don’t just walk in there and be like, “Hey, I’m gonna study business, so let’s go.” You have to present your strengths, you have to present yourself. So again, she’s not doing it consciously, this is just something that’s coming out of the sense deprivation. It’s her Dagobah moment. And I just loved the idea of The Stranger being overcome by what she can do. I mean, he murdered a bunch of people, so the idea that she could hobble him… I think he also feels like she’s in danger.

I think he also feels like, “I gotta get this fucking helmet off.” Because Torbin just fell apart, in terms of his lack of strength in the Force, what we get to see with him is that he will not stop until he can get to her. He is strong enough to push through, but I think it’s motivated by what he wants, which is to help her. He has to lean into that want and need.

That’s something I really appreciate with him as a character, too, because you see him really admiring her capabilities throughout this episode. There’s nothing hotter than when you’re stronger than the guy, and the guy is like, “Yeah, that’s cool. I like that.”

HEADLAND: I always say there’s nothing hotter than someone being good at their job. It’s just the way that it is. And I agree, he’s in this position where, unlike Sol, he knows she has to do this herself. That’s his journey in that last episode.

Have You Heard About the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis?
Image via Disney+

There is another character that’s shown in this, and I’m very curious to talk about them. Are we ready to talk about the tragedy of Darth Plagueis?

HEADLAND: We are. I’m very proud of the character design. It took a long time. Like we were saying the last time, obviously, we were doing a Muun; their hands are different, so showing the hand first felt like a nice tell. But also, again, the Crimson Peak reference of: this should not feel like a display of power, this should feel creepy. I think we achieved that. I thought it was important that he be in the cave because, you know, the call’s coming from inside the house. He’s already there in a very intrusive way. So, that was the thought around that. But yeah, baby, Plagueis.

I’m so excited. I literally lost my mind when he popped up because it’s very cool. Does The Stranger know that they have a roommate or is this like a Parasite situation?

HEADLAND: [Laughs] Let’s leave that up to [the future].

Was the design mo-cap or was it completely visual effects?

HEADLAND: Completely visual effects. The reference that I used was Gollum in Fellowship of the Ring. You don’t want to totally reveal the character design right now, but you definitely want to see enough of it that you understand this is gonna be a player.

I love all of the different influences that you have talked about throughout these three interviews that we’ve gotten to do, like Crimson Peak and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Are there any other visual or story influences that you had when creating this? That’s something I personally love, when you can see the fingerprints of different stories.

HEADLAND: Yes. Shinichirō Watanabe. He is the creator of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. Those were big references, not visually but tonally. Especially, Cowboy Bebop bounces back and forth between Spike’s backstory, which is incredibly tragic and heart-wrenching, and then his fun buoyancy when they do the episodic episodes. He feels like a Han Solo-coded character. So, totally, those were references.

With Osha and The Stranger’s relationship, Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola — which I know is different from the book — that film is one of my favorite films. Again, it was to have someone that was so scary, to have somebody that we clearly see is a bad guy, and he’s doing bad things, and Lucy is dying, and then to have this deep connection with Mina, where you see a totally different side of him. One of the things that really works about that movie is that there is this past life, soulmate, reincarnation idea for this character that has been alive for centuries, and he is just shocked to find her.

There’s also a moment later in the movie where she agrees to drink his blood, and he says, “I can’t let you do this. It’s basically gonna damn your soul.” And she has the agency and makes the decision to make this bond between the two of them. Actually, in earlier drafts, The Stranger had a line from that movie, which is, “I have crossed oceans of time to find you.” A lot of Gothic romances were referenced — Jane Eyre, Rochester and sort of the Byronic hero for those two.

As a Wuthering Heights girlie, I could see that.

HEADLAND: But Jecki and Yord, that was very Shinichirō Watanabe, like that sort of buoyant fun and then meeting a tragic end. [Laughs] The witches were Black Narcissus.

Jecki and Yord are something I did also want to touch on because I know you’ve talked about the name “Yord” coming from your RPG games with your friends and stuff. As somebody who’s fondest memories of Star Wars is creating my own stories with my friends as a kid, I love knowing that you have that kind of basis. How did that help you in shaping the story? It’s weird when you play those games because you feel like you’re inside of the world, so how does that feel?

HEADLAND: That’s how it was helpful. We had a great GM, and he would describe these locations — you had your blueprint, but he would describe these locations in great detail. So you would just hang out in these spaces for however long your terms went, and he would pivot and encourage, and just move us into these incredible directions. One thing that I noticed, again tonally, was that the situations could shift so quickly depending on what you rolled, and I really loved that, as well.

We also did like a Lovecraftian one — this was all during COVID. Now, all of us are just co-oping Elder Ring. [Laughs] That’s all we’re doing now. But during COVID, we did it a bunch, and that sort of added to the general feeling of the of the show and the danger of the show. I remember giving that note about Aniseya disappearing — Call of Cthulhu. Ultimately, it’s referencing a bunch of things. I was like, “It would be nice if, in the moment as it’s happening, her face kind of opens up,” I was like, “If we could get just a moment in there that felt kind of unknowable,” so that Sol was in the position of having to make a decision in that moment.

In talking about influences, I know there were immediately so many different parallels people were making between sequences in The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, and it’s so fun to see the visual callbacks within the franchise, as well. It’s so neat. How many of those are purely intentional callbacks and how many of those are just like, “This is Star Wars, so there’s a visual language that passes between projects?”

HEADLAND: Absolutely, there’s a visual language. I just think that everybody, when you see a Star Wars, you’re like, “That’s a Star Wars.” I think even if you don’t know Star Wars, you still absorbed it from pop culture. So a lot of the little lines of dialogue and the situations the characters are in, they’re very winky. It’s very, like, “Oh, this is like blah, blah, blah. This is like such and such.” So they’re intentional, but they’re meant as little lily pads. You hop on one, and then you hop on another one, and you’re like, “Oh, Obi-Wan said that. That was there. Oh, Yoda said that, ‘This is the future you saw.’” It’s me, again, taking my shot. Who gets to make a Star Wars? It’s crazy that I’m in this position. It has been my dream for so long and I’m so proud of it, and it felt like, well, if I get to do this, then I’m going to reference the stuff that…

The stuff that everybody else does!

HEADLAND: That everybody else does and that I love specifically. I can quote all of that by heart, so as we’re writing, I’m like, “Oh, this would be a great thing to drop in here,” like the Legend stuff and The High Republic stuff, just dropping it in there and going, “This is our own thing, but there are a couple of things that you can kind of hang on to.”

Yes! You mentioned The High Republic there, so I do wanna seize on that a little bit. Having read The High Republic since the initiative started, I feel like I’ve watched Vernestra grow up, and now I’m like, “Girl, you’ve become the very thing that the Jedi were trying not to be!”

HEADLAND: That, to me, juxtaposes an arc like Osha’s. Osha is so lonely and broken at the beginning, and by the end has really embraced this rage, almost feral aspects of herself to fulfill her destiny. To me, it was just so cool to do this tragic arc for Vernestra, which is that she goes from this prodigy, optimistic, inventive and creating her lightwhip, her hyperspace visions — there’s just these beautiful specific things about her, and then to see her move into this space where she’s no longer an adventurer. She has had to fill a role, which is to protect this institution.

She’s seen a lot of people go through there being the age that she is. I think that also speaks to her age and, I’d say, maturity in her stature. I think that anyone who is a part of that for as long as she is at some point evolves into it, like when a tree grows around something. I think it’s just something where you wake up one morning and you realize you’re that person.

I think that she is very disturbed by The Stranger, extremely disturbed by it. I don’t think she immediately knows he’s a Sith. She hasn’t seen the red lightsaber. I don’t think she goes all the way there, but the fact that he’s alive means a lot of things to her, and therefore, she’s got to control the situation. There’s no other option. What is she gonna do? There’s just no other option. Also, in my opinion, these Jedi keeping things from the overall institution, Vernestra keeping things, I’m kind of like, “Anakin kept a secret, which is murdering a bunch of Tusken Raiders.”

Mhm. And he has a whole wife, and kids on the way. [Laughs]

HEADLAND: Even Yoda’s not like, “Hey, you want to talk to me about your wife and the massacre, and all that shit that going on with you?” Instead, they’re meditating, and he kind of goes, “Well, man, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but it is not balanced. It is not what we’re going for.” And I think with Vernestra, her version of balance is that administrative keeping everything together, making sure that there’s protection around the Jedi Order.

I love that entire scene with Senator Rayencourt. I love David Harewood so much. I’ve loved him since he was Friar Tuck in the BBC’ Robin Hood back in the mid-aughts. I love that man so much. I was so excited to see him pop up. Everything he says in that scene is everything I feel about the Jedi. I was curious, maybe it’s just me, but was everything he says meant to be like an audience proxy for where they have reached at this point, seeing how the Jedi are kind of failures?

HEADLAND: Absolutely. Absolutely. He sums it up so succinctly and his performance is so immaculate that I think it’s very clear that this is not a blanket, “Jedi are the bad guys.” It’s saying, “I think that you have too much power. I’m not saying you guys are bad guys. I’m saying you have too much power, and it’s something that no one is looking into right now. So, yes, I have a vendetta against you.”

It was also very inspired by that scene in GoldenEye between James Bond and M. Judi Dench and Pierce Brosnan. What it tells the audience is that the institution of MI-6 is not as impressed with James Bond as you, the audience member, who sees him as the iconic character. They are not as impressed with him as you may be, so therefore, he has to earn that respect over the course of GoldenEye. Whether he’s successful or not, who knows? [Laughs] But I do think that it’s a moment where the quote “heroes” and the “protagonists” are essentially called out for relying on their status. They’re relying on their status of, like, “I’m 007. We’re the Jedi. Everybody loves us. What could we be doing wrong?” And to have this voice of reason, and absolutely the audience proxy, going, “Kids, what’s going on? What’s going on here?”

Hero worship is a hell of a drug.

HEADLAND: [Laughs] Exactly!

I really appreciated the fact that he is, like, “You think you’re a religion,” and she’s so quick to be like, “We’re not a religion.” But I’ve always viewed the Jedi as a religion, and then as I’ve evolved from my childhood to now, the deconstruction of the Jedi has fit so perfectly into the deconstruction of religion, as well. So, this scene was truly the moment of everything I’ve been waiting for somebody to call the Jedi out on.

HEADLAND: I’m so glad you feel that way. I’m so proud of it. I feel like we accomplished it. That scene was obviously cooking in my brain for a long time, figuring out how to really succinctly put the concern around the Jedi, but also how the Jedi are gonna slowly get sucked in to having to acquiesce to political issues. Because again, to protect the Jedi, she’s gonna have to play both sides, and that’s what ends up happening.

Speaking of playing both sides, I’m curious, why did Bazil sabotage the ship? Was it because Sol was getting ready to maybe shoot down Mae’s ship or do something, and he was like, “Hey, I know I was supposed to track this girl down, but I don’t think we should kill her?”

HEADLAND: I think he’s kind of like, “What is going on with this guy?” I love Bazil, I wanted to give him a hero moment. I wanted Sol to be completely on edge. I think that Bazil has witnessed the handcuffing, you know what I mean, because he’s hiding in the ship. We don’t cut to him because that would slow down this very important scene between two of the main characters, but I kind of liked the idea that he came in and was like, “What’s going on in here?”

Being like, “This is not right. Something’s not right here.” Should we pay attention to the fact that Osha and Mae don’t know who taught them their little rhyme from when they were children, or is that just a little moment of them reflecting as she was losing her memory?

HEADLAND: Oh, that’s a good question.

On my third rewatch, I was like, “Hmm…”

HEADLAND: Third rewatch?! [Laughs] I don’t know if there’s a big background there. It’s just that I liked the idea that as these women let go of their childhood, it’s like all of the sudden there’s this questioning of, “This has happened to me in my own life. Is this a fond memory or is this something that was somebody else’s thought on us? Does this become ours?” And I think it does very quickly when he does what he does. I think very quickly they embrace it as their own.

Are Mae and Osha a Dyad?

We’ve talked a little bit about the Dyads in the previous interviews. We don’t know a lot about Dyads, honestly. We haven’t really learned that much yet in Star Wars canon, but how does what Mae and Osha have as being the same person kind of differ in contrast with what we do know about Ben and Rey?

HEADLAND: Listen, when I saw Rise of Skywalker and that came up, I was like, “Interesting.”

Right? One of the most interesting concepts in that movie. [Laughs]

HEADLAND: Very interesting. I talked to Pablo a lot about it, and we started to talk about whether or not we wanted to tease it or whether or not we wanted to confirm it. I hope that people end with just not really knowing. I do think it’s something worth exploring if we get to continue telling the story, but I also felt strongly that I shouldn’t namedrop Force Dyad, because it felt a little inside baseball for a regular viewer. Already, we were trying to get them on board with the Vergence [laughs], so it was like, to add another piece of vocabulary that may not necessarily translate…

Here’s what I’ll say. I think that there’s a world where Sol just doesn’t have the vocabulary or information to express what he’s looking at. He may have misread what he saw. After everything he’s done, I’m not sure he’s a reliable narrator at this point, you know? So I was interested in keeping it vague enough that you could explore it on your own. Again, this is the way I felt.

Quickly going back to the religion thing, that came from A New Hope when Admiral Motti says, “Oh, you’re holding on to that ancient religion.” That was very much the seduced to the dark side. I was like, “What’s this about?” But I think the way that you see The Stranger and Osha almost immediately Yin and Yang-ing, there’s also an argument to be made there. So, it’s something that I would love to explore rather than giving it a definitive answer. I think it’s worth exploring what that means, and now that it was established in live-action by somebody else, kind of going in and saying like, “Okay, let’s take some time.”

I felt so bad for Sol because it seems like he’s trying to express, “This is a thing! Something is going on here because you’re the same person.” He just kept trying to explain it but could never really find the words, and I think that’s what makes it so interesting. We’re at a point in history where Dyad is not something that anybody really even knows what it is.

HEADLAND: He doesn’t understand. Listen, it’s part of the lesson of the show, which is when you’re dealing with something that’s so powerful, like the Force, that’s so unknowable, who is anyone to say, “It’s like this. This is how it works?” And I think Sol is just grasping for…

A justification for what he’s done?

HEADLAND: Definitely. Justification, but he’s grasping for, “This is why I did this. If your mother created you, this is crazy. This is the level of discovering some sort of natural resource that we have never seen.” Like he says, in Episode 7, “This should be studied.” I think that the thing with Osha and Mae is, again, “We have to understand what your power is and if you have that power, the same power as your mother, which we foreshadow at the beginning of Episode 8, then we’ve got to have it. People can’t go out there and start doing that. We need to study it, we need to respect it.” I think it’s noble intentions. I think the idea is, “There’s this power out there, and we should carefully and thoughtfully explore it.”

What I think is going on with Plagueis is that he also knows this has happened. He also is aware, or will quickly become aware of this aspect of the Force existing. This is why I gotta say I disagree with the criticism of, “Well, so and so didn’t have it, and Palpatine… Why do these women have it?” First of all, we’re in a completely different part of the timeline. Second of all, if I’m going to tell the story of Plagueis, which I would love to do, like, absolutely love to do, him pursuing that power is so much more interesting as a storyline than him already having it.

It would be like if you started Infinity War with Thanos having all the Infinity Stones. You’re like, “Well, what are we gonna do for two hours? We’re just gonna fight?” You want to feel that, like, “We’ve got to stop him! We’ve got to get to him before– Oh, no! We’re taking some L’s at every point.” Then it culminates. “Now that he has this power, we must…” And then the stakes get to raise. To me, that’s just so much more interesting.

Also, Maggie, I don’t know if everybody’s aware of this — some women have uteruses.

Wait, we do? [Laughs]

HEADLAND: I don’t mean to shock you. I don’t want to rock your world right now. But it’s not like Shmi was hanging out on Tatooine and Anakin just showed up, you know what I mean? She would have been like, “Anyway, Qui-Gon…” And he was like, “What happened?” And she was like, “Well, this kid showed up at my door.” She got pregnant. Koril got pregnant. If that were part of someone’s ability, then they would have to somehow pursue an unknowing woman. So, that power starting with women makes sense to me. The power exists out there, they do their best to harness it, they make it happen.

I don’t know, it seems so logical to me. I don’t mean to be argumentative, it’s just in my mind it made so much sense that this was a power that Sith would be looking for, and that women would be the originators of being able to, at least in the timeline — I’m sure other beings can have it — but within the timeline saying, “Well, there are some witches, and they tried to do it, and it split, and it became two people instead of one person.”

It makes sense to me, as well. Is the yellow willow tree maybe symbolic of where the vergence could be on Brendok, or is it just a pretty nature scene? I want like a mural of it. It’s such a beautiful shot.

HEADLAND: It’s beautiful. Kevin Jenkins made that happen. Yimou Zhang, who directed the movie Hero — the color palette in that is just astonishing, so the orange dust at Khofar, and then the yellow tree, we wanted to have these big pops of color to feel like a romantic feast for the eyes kind of thing. I personally feel like the vergence is in that hole. I just love the idea like John Carpenter’s The Thing — these miners were trying to get in there, and then they were like, “Holy fuck.” They all got obliterated, or we don’t know. But I do think Vernestra has a hint when she looks up at it. I think she’s definitely feeling something. It’s just that… [Laughs]

She’s some bigger problems.

HEADLAND: “We’ve got to clean this up.” She’s like Harvey Keitel and Pulp Fiction. She’s like, “Guys, we don’t have time, we don’t have time. I gotta get rid of this body.”

“Gotta avoid my old pupil.”

HEADLAND: “He’s somewhere around here. I’m gonna have to whip something.” So, I think there’s a world where she senses that, but I wouldn’t be able to say for sure. I just love the idea that it’s within the planet as opposed to hanging out somewhere.

How The Final Shot With Osha and The Stranger Was Created

In talking about the tree, we, of course, get one of the first hand-touches in the episode when she takes this hand. Again, a parallel that I just love so much is actually taking the hand that is offered in that future, and I have to say, the final shot of them in this episode is the kind of moment that launches a thousand fics for the ship. It is the stuff of dreams. It really is. This is also the first time that we’ve seen a couple in Star Wars, and honestly, even within most of television and movies, it’s few and far between, which is a dynamic which is like, “We can actually make each other worse and be the actual villains together.” That never happens. I’m curious for you, what were the parameters in which you were working to ensure that this is the story that plays out for them both together and as individuals?

HEADLAND: I’ll say, the hand-holding, I love that. Sorry, kids, but I was trying to get some Jane Austen in there.

It’s the Pride and Prejudice hand-touch!

HEADLAND: Sorry, babes, but again, I’m gonna shoot my shot here. George Lucas was inspired by so many different films, and also in Clone Wars he was. There are whole episodes that are based on films that he loves, like The Wrong Jedi is based on The Wrong Man. He was so in clearly in love with film. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Star Wars is pastiche, but there’s definitely an element of that within the Star Wars visual vocabulary. So again, I’m here, I am doing what I never thought would happen. I’m doing something impossible. I’m doing something that, like, 10 people have done, and I was like, “I would like to explore the cinematic and literary references that I like.”

Also, I think it works for the character development, as well. He touches her so softly in Episode 6. I think it was just so cool in terms of that he just wastes a bunch of people, he just takes them down, and that with her, he’s telegraphing, “I am not that way with you. You know what I’m capable of, but I want you to know that is not the way I see you. I don’t see you as my enemy.” If she starts out very lonely at the beginning of the show, she needs physical affection.

Obviously, the end, that last shot, was very inspired by the end of Fight Club just standing there together, ready to watch the world burn. The tragedy is that we know that’s not gonna happen because we’ve seen Plagueis, so we know this is not possible. It was actually the actors’ idea to hold hands, and it was a really, really good idea.

I was sort of struggling with what the last moment was. I was kind of struggling with it. It was very important that they feel like equals. It was very important that they felt, honestly, like a power couple. I didn’t think he should kiss her because, while he’s earned her respect, she’s earned his, he’s earned her allegiance, and she’s earned his, I don’t know if he has earned that level of intimacy with her. There have been displays of intimacy, but it felt like they weren’t there yet. And so I said, “What’s a kiss but not a kiss?” [Laughs] I was like, “I’m sorry, I can’t think of something.” And the actors came up with holding the lightsaber together, and as soon as that happened, Hanelle [Culpepper], the director of that episode, set up this gorgeous shot. I realized, I was like, “Oh my god, this is the end of Fight Club, and I’m obsessed!” The last line of that movie is, “You met me at a very strange time in my life.” [Laughs] It just didn’t feel like we were quite there.

Maybe in Season 2. [Laughs] But I think them holding hands over the lightsaber, there’s definitely euphemism in there. Some allusions.

HEADLAND: This is the other reason I love Manny — some of Episode 5, but almost every line in Episode 6 is a sexual innuendo, and he just does it in this way that doesn’t feel corny or cheesy. Manny himself is a very earnest guy. That’s the best way I can put it. He’s sweet, he’s lovely, and he’s very earnest. He doesn’t do something that doesn’t feel grounded for him. So he was just able to walk the line. Everybody knows that that’s what it is, but there’s no winking about it. That’s what I thought he did so well. But just, “How does it feel?” [Laughs]

Both Amandla and Manny, when they read the final draft of Episode 6, they were both looking at me like, “Leslye.” Just shaking their heads and being like, “Alright, here we go,” but I loved it. I loved playing around with that. I’ve felt a lot of love for my friends, this sexuality, and what they’re both playing is so exciting. Star Wars was really sexy to me.

Always has been!

HEADLAND: It’s sexy. I don’t know why, but it is. And I do think a lot of the imagery — it’s like, oh my god, but it’s true, it’s phallic. There’s a lot of really incredible pieces of imagery that I think is very subliminal. I think it just sinks into you. Then, of course, Han and Leia.

The OTP to end all OTPs. I’m still emotionally scarred from The Rise of Skywalker where there was this weird backpedaling where they were like, “Oh, it was a kiss of gratitude. It was like completely platonic.” First of all, I don’t kiss people on the mouth to say thank you for saving my life. Are we wrong to be reading that there’s some romance there?

HEADLAND: No!

Because that was the whole thing that happened after The Rise of Skywalker. They were like, “It was a kiss of gratitude,” and I was like, “And what if I walked into traffic?” So are we right to read romance into the hand-hold?

HEADLAND: Oh, yeah! Again, they’re Sith. It’s a different vibe. To me, it’s gonna hit different because of their allegiance and who they are. So, yes, it is framed as romantic, but I do think, again, it’s not gonna turn out great. I think if he’s training her, “One to hold the power, one to crave it.” So they’re starting off as equals, but what’s gonna happen? Like in Romeo and Juliet, it’s amazing because right at the beginning they’re like, “Okay, these two die. Let’s start the play.” As you’re watching this incredible love story unfold, and it’s one of the most beautifully iconic plays ever written, in the back of your mind, you’re like, “This is not going to turn out well.”

I want to clarify: They are not necessarily doomed or destined to fail as a team. But the Sith rule of two denotes a power imbalance. Which clearly, due to the final shot, is not their relationship. Also, Plagueis complicates their journey as Sith, because we know his apprentice is eventually Palpatine. They will not defeat him.

Exactly. It’s a fixed point in the future! We know where this is headed. Shifting gears, one of the most popular questions that I got to ask you from Twitter was: What do fans need to do to ensure that we get a Season 2?

HEADLAND: Truly, any online support and love you can send the show. It’s a little tricky because of the way that the internet works, but if you enjoyed the show and you want to see more of the story, any support that you can give the show on social media platforms would be super helpful. Sending love to the cast, too. You’ve seen what Hayden [Christensen] went through. He’s getting the love now, but give the love now if you enjoyed the performances. Even if you were kind of like whatever on the show, if you enjoyed the performances, get on their social media, let them know that you love them, or that you support them or that the performances were great.

Encourage your friends to watch the show. A lot of my work has been word of mouth. We were talking about the review bombing, so just telling people don’t pay attention to the IMDb score. If you enjoyed it, tell people. It kind of seems that it’s sort of basic, but I think what’s interesting is that, nowadays, if you like a show, you’re very rarely going to go online and be like, “I liked this show!”

You just watch it and move on.

HEADLAND: You watch it, you move on, maybe you mention it to somebody over dinner and be like, “Oh, I just binged this show. It was fun. Lee Jung-jae is an awesome actor.” It usually comes up that way, as opposed to going online and saying, “I love this show.” So, if you did love the show, then pivot and be appreciative… By the way, I know this is already happening, even though I’m not online. People have been sending me fun tweets and beautiful artwork, and all of the ship comments, and I’m absolutely loving it. I know it’s out there. But if you aren’t doing it, I would encourage you to do it and support the show. So, thank you.

That was also the majority of the responses I got to my tweet saying that I was talking to you today was people saying, “Tell Leslye how much I love her, how much this story has meant to me,” how much they enjoyed it. There’s a lot of love out there for you, as well, even though you’re not on social.

HEADLAND: Please send it right back at them. I love Star Wars. I’m so proud of this show. I can’t tell you. It is an achievement that I value, and I’m grateful for. It’s something that I will always look back on with awe, both because I feel so strongly about how well we told the story, but also how much work went into it and how much faith people had in me. That will always be with me in my bones for the rest of my life. I’ve had so much fun talking to you about this show.

The Acolyte is streaming now on Disney+.

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