Star Wars: The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland is giving credit to Lucasfilm Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni for the inclusion of the lesbian witch coven in the show’s third episode.
(L-R): Amandla Stenberg , set PA Taylor Young, director Leslye Headland and director of photography Chris Teague on the set of Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
In an interview with StarWars.com, Headland revealed, “Dave Filoni very quickly became kind of a mentor of mine in terms of navigating what this part of the timeline would be like for both the Jedi and then other Force users.”
She added, “It was kind of this ‘A-ha!’ moment for me when he told me, ‘You know, not all witches are Nightsisters.”
(L-R): Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Koril (Margarita Levieva) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
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Headland would also inform Entertainment Weekly, “I was very inspired by the Nightsisters storyline and the Ventress storyline on The Clone Wars when I was a budding writer. So when I got the chance to make a show set in the Star Wars universe, it felt like, ‘Well, of course I’m going to do my version of witches. I just am going to shoot my shot.’”
She then explained, “As the characters developed, it made a lot of sense that they would be at the center of a coven. That the girls would be almost revealed not as children, but as the legacy of what their mother started.”
(L-R): Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Mae (Amandla Stenberg) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Furthermore, Headland shared details on the coven’s chant: “The power of one, the power of two, the power of many.”
This is Disney Star Wars
BWHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA#Acolyte pic.twitter.com/EZ4FcnNWb8— Nerdrotic (@Nerdrotics) June 12, 2024
She said, “The power of one, the power of two, the power of many. In our show, the Jedi have the power of many. I think their mother started as one, and the girls are two, and she wants her legacy to be the power of many. So it was thought of as paying homage to The Clone Wars, but it eventually became the story of a mom and her children and the way that our parents have particular expectations for us.”
“And if Star Wars is anything, it’s got a lot of parents and children and living up to or rejecting the legacy of those parents,” she added.
Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Headland also played coy with Jodie Turner-Smith’s Mother Aniseya stating that she created the twin.
She told EW, “If you keep watching the show, we do talk about that and explore that. I would say there isn’t one answer to it. Some characters believe certain things, and other characters believe other things in terms of what she means by that. So you’re going to have to watch and decide which side of that argument you’re on.”
(Center): Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Of note, actress Turner-Smith also informed EW that the witches are not on the light or the dark side, but in the gray. Ironically, in the show, it’s revealed that the witches acknowledge that the Jedi believe their use of Thread is dark and unnatural.
Nevertheless, she said that the witches “represent something we’ve talked about, which this gray area. If you were to think of the light side and the dark side as this binary that exists, the witches feel that they exist in the gray. Also, we are putting too much emphasis on the light and the dark. I think it’s more about power.”
(Clockwise from right): Jedi Master Kelnacca (Joonas Suotamo), Master Torbin (Dean-Charles Chapman), Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss), Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Koril (Margarita Levieva) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Headland had previously claimed that she believed the concept of religion was oppressive.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, she said, “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 added.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 23: Leslye Headland attends the launch event for Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series The Acolyte at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 23, 2024. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
What do you make of Dave Filoni heavily influencing the creation of the lesbian witch coven in The Acolyte?
So, it wasn’t enough for Filoni to have Caitlin Kennedy ruining his legacy and interfering with his work, so he decided to bury himself with the Acolyte? Great. Unless this was a cunning attempt to separate it from the Nightsisters and deliberately frame it for negative feedback, as was the case with his retcon of the Ahsoka novel.
Well it is separate since they are different witches entirely.
Doesn’t matter. A retcon is a retcon
If it was a retcon, they would have been nixed entirely. Considering we have had multiple factions with witches before, I’m not buying the retcon.
at this point does anyone care about ‘disney-canon’. the answer to that rhetorical question is ‘no’
I’m giving examples in case people didn’t know.
No you didn’t. You just keep deflecting
I love how this dude states that he acknowledges that Disney is at the bottom and is simply standing up for what’s right, while obsessively defending the show whenever it’s mentioned.
Emphatically No.
Has anyone seen Filoni in an interview? He’s clearly an ultra-beta who is married to some kind of wiccan-feminist that goes by the name of E. Anne Convery. The guy wears a big cowboy hat all the time as some sort of psychological coping mechanism to offset his lack of manhood and masculinity.
I try not to be an overly crass, however…
What I know is the ONLY person that created anything of substance is leaving, OR being shown the door, in Favreau. Yet “midnight cowboy” with his fruity hat and even fruitier face was given the keys. Back the crass bit. I truly can picture him on a bed, on all four’s with kathleen approaching from behind with one of them nasty strap-on “pegs”, getting ready to _________ him.