EGN NEWS DESK
Leslye Headland has been telling “Star Wars” tales onscreen since she was an adolescent. Ostracized at college for being totally different, she retreated inward, making stop-motion movies starring her motion figures.
So when she discovered success as an grownup in Hollywood — Headland helped create “Russian Doll,” the 2019 Netflix comedy starring Natasha Lyonne — and received the prospect to create an precise “Star Wars” present, it was the conclusion of a lifelong dream.
And an opportunity for humiliating failure. On a galactic scale.
“I basically cold-called Lucasfilm and, after a whole lot of conversations, discovered myself pitching a present — totally elated, my final profession aim, the fruits of my fandom,” Headland mentioned. “At the identical time, I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I wasn’t scared. There is a lot strain. It’s excessive. I had by no means finished something this huge earlier than.”
Headland’s present, “The Acolyte,” will debut on Disney+ on June 4. Costing roughly $180 million (for eight episodes) and taking 4 years to make, it makes an attempt two feats directly: pleasing old-school “Star Wars” followers — who can appear unpleasable — whereas telling a completely new story, one which requires no prior information of “Star Wars” and that showcases girls and folks of coloration.
For the devoted, “The Acolyte” serves up scads of Jedi, a franchise elementary that the opposite live-action “Star Wars” TV reveals have depicted sparingly or in no way. The opening scene in “The Acolyte” takes place in an eatery crowded with colourful aliens, a callback to the Mos Eisley cantina from the primary “Star Wars” film, in 1977.
Other shout-outs to core followers — we see you, we haven’t forgotten about you — are sprinkled into the dialogue: “May the pressure be with you” and “I’ve a nasty feeling about this” makes an early look.
At the identical time, “The Acolyte” embraces what some folks name “New Star Wars,” an period outlined by variety and growth past the Skywalker saga, which began with Disney’s buy of the franchise in 2012.
Amandla Stenberg stars as a dreadlocked warrior who has an advanced relationship with a Jedi grasp performed by Lee Jung-jae from “Squid Game,” in his first English-speaking function. Jodie Turner-Smith (“Queen & Slim”) performs the lesbian chief of a regal coven of witches, whereas the Filipino-Canadian actor Manny Jacinto (“The Good Place”) seems as a shadowy dealer. In considered one of her most action-oriented roles since “The Matrix,” Carrie-Anne Moss performs a steely Jedi named Master Indara.
“The Acolyte” additionally breaks new floor behind the digital camera: While girls have directed episodes of reveals like “The Mandalorian” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Headland, 43, is the primary to create a “Star Wars” collection.
“It was like engaged on a razor’s edge,” she mentioned throughout a Zoom interview, pushing her oversize glasses greater on her nostril. “You’re considering, ‘This is what folks need from “Star Wars.” This is what folks don’t need.’ It can mess along with your head.”
“During the inventive course of,” she continued, “I needed to give myself the forgiveness, as an artist, to fall off the razor — so long as I received again up. That was my promise to myself.”
From the second that any new “Star Wars” challenge comes into public view — Disney introduced “The Acolyte” in 2020 — followers claw for info and choose aside what they discover. It’s a part of what makes “Star Wars” so highly effective: People care. But the eye additionally creates issues.
Rumors can solidify into information. Some “Star Wars” obsessives, as an example, have anxious that Headland’s present “breaks canon,” or tinkers with already-established story strains within the franchise — the last word “Star Wars” crime. It doesn’t.
In truth, Headland selected to position “The Acolyte” on the very starting of the “Star Wars” timeline so canonical points could be minimal. The present is a mystery-thriller — somebody is killing Jedis — set at a time when the Jedi are at their peak, the pre-“Phantom Menace” period that has been explored in “Star Wars” novels however by no means onscreen. The solely character in “The Acolyte” that beforehand existed anyplace within the franchise is a Jedi Master from novels named Vernestra Rwoh. (Headland forged her spouse, Rebecca Henderson, within the function, giving her a lightsaber that may rework right into a whip.)
“Leslye needed this present to be accessible — no homework wanted earlier than watching,” mentioned Jocelyn Bioh, the Ghanaian-American author. Headland added Bioh to the writing workforce for “The Acolyte” particularly as a result of Bioh was not a “Star Wars” devotee.
“She requested me what I knew about ‘Star Wars,’ and my reply was, ‘Harrison Ford runs round area with a large canine?’” Bioh recalled, laughing. “And Leslye mentioned, ‘You’re employed.’”
“She needed to probably invite in new followers — folks like me,” Bioh mentioned.
The first “Acolyte” trailer, launched in March, racked up 51.3 million views in its first 24 hours, a file for any live-action “Star Wars” collection, together with “The Mandalorian,” in line with Lucasfilm. Sneak-peek “Acolyte” footage, launched in theaters in early May, highlighted the present’s distinctive martial arts sequences; fan websites immediately deemed the preventing fashion Force Fu.
But a loud, primordial a part of the “Star Wars” fandom has pushed again in predictable style.
“Why are there so many ladies, women and minority characters more and more dominating the ranks of Jedi?” reads a touch upon “The Acolyte” trailer, with others expressing the same worldview.
It is a model of the identical misogyny and racism that greeted Rey, the feminine Jedi (performed by Daisy Ridley) who made her debut in “The Force Awakens” in 2015, and that drove Kelly Marie Tran off social media when she appeared in “The Last Jedi” (2017). Kathleen Kennedy, who runs Lucasfilm, has additionally skilled it, with “South Park” harshly attacking her in an episode final yr. The cartoon depicted Kennedy giving the identical suggestions to “Star Wars” creators time and again: “Put a chick in it! Make her lame and homosexual!”
Some trolls have nicknamed Headland’s collection “The Wokelyte.”
In a short phone interview, Kennedy’s assist for “The Acolyte” was steadfast. “My perception is that storytelling does should be consultant of all folks,” she mentioned. “That’s a straightforward determination for me.”
“Operating inside these big franchises now, with social media and the extent of expectation — it’s terrifying,” Kennedy continued. “I believe Leslye has struggled slightly bit with it. I believe a whole lot of the ladies who step into ‘Star Wars’ wrestle with this a bit extra. Because of the fan base being so male dominated, they generally get attacked in methods that may be fairly private.”
Headland has tried to restrict her publicity to the net dialog, each good and unhealthy, as an alternative counting on buddies for “climate stories.”
“As a fan myself, I understand how irritating some ‘Star Wars’ storytelling prior to now has been,” Headland mentioned, declining to quote particular examples. “I’ve felt it myself.”
She adopted up with a textual content message. “I stand by my empathy for ‘Star Wars’ followers,” she wrote. “But I need to be clear. Anyone who engages in bigotry, racism or hate speech … I don’t contemplate a fan.”
“Star Wars” tasks aren’t identified for private or idiosyncratic filmmaking. The manufacturing and advertising and marketing budgets are just too excessive; the storytelling should enchantment to the widest attainable viewers to make the numbers work.
Rian Johnson, who directed “The Last Jedi,” advised The New York Times in 2017 that he didn’t even attempt to put his personal stamp on the franchise. “It could be unhealthy information in case you got here into this saying, ‘How do I make this mine?’” he mentioned.
Kennedy, nonetheless, pushed Headland to do exactly that with “The Acolyte.”
“You’ve written an amazing ‘Star Wars’ present,” Kennedy advised her in 2019 in response to early scripts. “Now go write a Leslye Headland present.”
Kennedy had learn considered one of Headland’s performs, “Cult of Love,” which explores an advanced relationship between siblings. “It’s about her private expertise,” Kennedy mentioned. “And it was simply so effectively finished and extremely emotional. I keep in mind studying that and saying, ‘Leslye, that is precisely what you need to faucet into as you write this story for us.’”
Explaining precisely how Headland took Kennedy’s recommendation would spoil a significant plot level in “Acolyte.” Let’s simply say that Headland heightened a conflict between characters.
“I’ve a really strained relationship with my youngest sister, and I really feel like one of many causes it’s strained is that we each see one another because the unhealthy man,” Headland mentioned. “And if I used to be going to inform a narrative about unhealthy guys, it appeared to me that the place to begin must be a familial relationship the place one individual is adamantly satisfied of her correctness and the opposite individual can be adamantly satisfied of her correctness.”
“We don’t communicate,” Headland added. “I believe this will probably be a shock to her.”
She wouldn’t say something extra on the subject, besides to emphasise that she has relationship along with her different sister, who helped make a visible presentation that Headland used to pitch “The Acolyte” to Lucasfilm. (Headland described her idea within the assembly as “‘Frozen’ meets ‘Kill Bill.’” Kennedy purchased it on the spot.)
Stenberg, the present’s star, mentioned “Leslye actually is pushed by emotion and coronary heart and relationships. So regardless that our present is throughout the ‘Star Wars’ universe and set in outer area, in a galaxy far, far-off, it’s actually a household drama.”
Headland had directed indie movies (“Bachelorette,” “Sleeping With Other People”) and served as showrunner for “Russian Doll,” the hit Netflix comedy a couple of New Yorker (Natasha Lyonne) caught in a reincarnation loop. But she had by no means managed a big-budget manufacturing.
What she lacked in expertise, she made up for with “Star Wars” geekdom. Headland turned a “Star Wars” superfan as an adolescent. It was an apocalyptic interval of her life, or no less than it felt that approach.
“I had no buddies,” she recalled. “I ate my lunch within the toilet.”
She discovered solace among the many misfits in George Lucas’s area operas, discovering books like Timothy Zahn’s “Heir to the Empire” (1991) and amassing motion figures. When Lucas launched the “particular editions” of his first three “Star Wars” motion pictures, Headland lined up at her native theater on opening evening. Just a few years in the past, she had Ralph McQuarrie’s idea artwork for Princess Leia tattooed on her proper hand.
“‘Star Wars’ has been part of my persona since I can keep in mind,” Headland mentioned. “So engaged on this present has been a dream. I needed to take my shot.”
She paused for a second. “If it doesn’t succeed, it’s due to me,” she mentioned. “That’s actually scary to consider.”
“No, no — I’m not going to go there,” she mentioned, climbing again on that razor’s edge.
