Star Wars: The Acolyte sparked a lot of debate with its first trailer, which brought the era of The High Republic into mainstream live-action for the very first time, and teased a dark cloud of evil growing over it.
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The biggest standout of The Acolyte trailer was no doubt seeing The Matrix and Marvel’s Jessica Jones star Carrie-Anne Moss making her Star Wars debut as Jedi Master Indara. The trailer showed Indara hanging out in a cantina where she is tracked down and ambushed by a mysterious assassin clothed in the garb of a religious cult that is hunting Jedi. Footage of Master Indara battling the assassin instantly gave fans nostalgic vibes of seeing Moss as Trinity in The Matrix movies; well, now The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland is confirming that it’s no coincidence: Indara is her Star Wars version of Trinity:
“She [Master Indara] is very much inspired by Trinity,” Headland told Empire. “I personally wanted to see someone who had the highest status you could imagine in a Force-fu fight – somebody that would come in and you immediately would be like, ‘Oh, that’s the most powerful Jedi in the room.’ And that’s Trinity,”
The stunt casting has worked: seeing Moss in that “Force-fu” fight scene instantly separated The Acolyte from virtually every other Star Wars content that came before it. Fans quickly understood that this would be a martial-arts-style Star Wars show with a mystery-investigation bend to it. That’s a wild combination of flavors for Headland and co. to be cooking with, but Carrie-Anne Moss sounds pretty confident that the vibe she got from Headland is that of someone who truly knows what she’s building:
“I felt that a few times in my career with some of the big things I’ve done – Memento, The Matrix – where you’re talking to the filmmaker and you just go, ‘Oh, they totally get it,’” Moss also told Empire, saying she also loved the role itself:
“Within my soul and my spirit, to get to play this Jedi Master and train for the fight was [an] amazing experience,” Moss said. “A part of me forgot how much I love action. I love it. It’s hard. But I was just really thrilled that I could do it, and I wanted to do it well. ‘Gimme another take! Gimme another take!’”
Star Wars: The Acolyte will stream its episodes on Disney+ starting on June 4th.
