The Acolyte actress Amandla Stenberg jokingly described Leslye Headland as a “sick” and “twisted” while discussing the most recent episode that saw Manny Jacinto’s Qimir kill a number of Jedi on the planet Khofar.
(L): Osha (Amandla Stenberg) in a scene from Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Headland first explained the reveal of Qimir as a Sith, “”I think a good twist is not about hiding everything from the audience and then throwing it on them like, ‘Hey, this is what you didn’t see! We hid it so well that you didn’t see this!”
She added, “I think a good twist is telegraphing what’s going to happen, and then once it does, executing it without an ounce of pity or sentimentality.”
Scene from Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
Next, Headland provided details on how she set up all the kills and wanted it to be surprising that Dafne Keen’s Jecki and Charlie Barnett’s Yord were killed.
Headland stated, “That’s what I loved about starting with the red shirts. You’re kind of like, ‘Oh, he’s just going to kill a bunch of red shirts, and everybody is going to be fine and… OH MY GOD, JECKI’S DEAD! Okay, I’m listening.'”
As for the brutality of the kills, Headland said, “I just figured someone would stop me and nobody did. I figured someone would say, ‘This is too far!’ But they didn’t.” It’s unclear why she would think this given how Darth Vader butchered Rebels in Rogue One and how Kylo Ren butchered a bunch of aliens in the opening scene of The Rise of Skywalker. In fact, there’s multiple beheadings in the prequel trilogy including Jango Fett and Count Dooku. Qui-Gon Jinn is also impaled by Darth Maul. Moments later Maul is cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
(Center, L-R): Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and Jedi Knight (Lewis Young, second from left) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
Reacting to the brutality shown in the fifth episode, Stenberg laughed, “We were all like, ‘Leslye, the way that you take them out is so brutal! ‘What the hell? What kind of sick, twisted masochist are you?”
Headland responded, “I guess I always thought, ‘Well, Anakin killed a bunch of children, so…”
Osha (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
There might be an ulterior motive in regards to the brutality against the Jedi. Headland previously discussed how she believes religion is oppressive and has made it abundantly clear that she views the Jedi as the powerful institution to be opposed in The Acolyte.
She told StarWars.com, “If Star Wars is about the underdog versus the institution, [in The Acolyte] the Jedi are the institution.” She would later add, “And if the bad guys are actually the underdog, it just seemed like a cool reversal.”
(Third from left): Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) and (center, background) Master Holden (Indra Ové) and Master Ki-Adi-Mundi (Derek Arnold) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
As for her comments on religion, she told Vanity Fair, ““It is unusual to point to pieces of pop culture that have representations of extreme spirituality. The concept of God is such a heavy concept. The concept of religion is such a really oppressive one, especially for people like myself and many, many others. So what you just made me realize is that part of the lasting effect is that Star Wars is a spiritual story.
She continued, “Even Tolkien is not as spiritual as the Force is, or as Yoda is. I remember as a child being raised in a Catholic home … When Yoda says, ‘Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,’ even as a kid I understood that so much more than I understood catechisms and sacraments and all of those other things. I got that immediately: That I have a spirit in addition to having a body. For George to have done that, it’s almost an impossible thing.”
She then confirmed this was part of The Acolyte, “That would be my big hope in getting to play in this world, to continue to search through a spiritual story that changes someone’s identity or destiny. That to me is the heart of it.”
Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
What do you make of Stenberg referring to Headland as a sick, twisted masochist even if in jest?
