Star Wars: The Acolyte Cinematographer Chris Teague Reveals What Surprised Him On Set

Star Wars: The Acolyte has now released four episodes on Disney+, and three of them saw cinematographer Chris Teague serving as the director of photography. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Teague and he spoke about what he did to prepare when joining the iconic franchise and what it was like working with the VFX team and filming lightsabers. Teague has many cinematography credits to his name ranging from Russian Doll to Only Murders in the Building, but it’s no small thing getting to join Star Wars, so we also asked Teague if anything surprised him along the way. 

“I mean, probably a million things surprised me along the way,” Teague shared. “I’m trying to hone it down to one thing. It was never like, ‘Oh wow, I can’t believe they do this this way or that way.’ It was more just like, ‘Now I’m working with one of the best special effects teams in the world, and now I’m getting to see the kind of tools that they use and the kind of team that they have.’ Or, ‘Now I’m getting to see Neal Scanlan design these incredible creatures and see how much what he creates is just there on camera.’”

“He just does an amazing job, him and his team creating these creature heads and faces and there’s just very little or no modification after the fact,” Teague explained. “I remember showing some of the footage to one of my friends and he’s like, ‘Well, that’s a CG creature.’ And I’m like, ‘No, that’s real. That was in the room.’” 

You can watch our interview with Chris Teague at the top of the page.

What Is The Acolyte About?

Set during The High Republic, Star Wars: The Acolyte delivers an investigation into a mysterious string of crimes, which pits a Jedi master against his former apprentice in a race to uncover the truth. The more that the pair learn about the situation, the darker their journey becomes, as they confront things that darker than either of them could have imagined.

The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Chris Teague. The first four episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are now streaming on Disney+ with the fifth episode scheduled to drop on Tuesday, June 25th.