Star Wars: The Acolyte Gets Filming Start and New Character Details on Disney+

The Star Wars universe has been thriving on Disney+, with the streaming service finding new and inventive ways to capture the magic of a galaxy far, far away. Among the Star Wars projects that the service has is Star Wars: The Acolyte, a show that is being described as a martial arts-influenced mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. The series is being showrun by Russian Doll and Sleeping With Other People alum Leslye Headland, and it was announced earlier this year that The Hunger Games‘ Amandla Stenberg is in talks for the lead role. A new report from The Illuminerdi potentially shines even more light on the series — both when it’s filming, and what its supporting cast could look like.

According to their reporting, The Acolyte is now expected to begin production in October of 2022, and wrap by May of 2023. While this is much later than fans had expected the series to start filming, it at least provides an inkling of when other elements of the series could come together.

In terms of the supporting cast, the report claims that The Acolyte is seeking a Caucasian man in his 50s to play “Paul’, who will be a series regular on the show and will seemingly only be part of it for one season. The show is also reportedly looking to cast a young Black girl (and potentially identical twins) to portray 8-10 years old to play “Miri”, who is described as a lead guest star.

“Just because my show is technically, yes, ‘female-centric’, meaning it centers around a female protagonist, I don’t think that necessarily excludes men from that space,” Headland explained during a previous interview with Fantastic Frankey. “I relate to male characters all the time. I root for Mando. I root for Luke… An inclusive space means an inclusive space. But at the same time, I think that just because something has a female protagonist doesn’t necessarily mean it’s only for women.”

“I kind of see, if Star Wars is a religion… I like to think of my show as a tent revival,” Headland continued. “You can come over if you want to. We’re going to be talking about some cool stuff. There’s going to be some things we haven’t discussed in the canon yet. There are going to be some characters you don’t know about. I would love you to join us. I would love you to be interested in it. If it’s not your thing — the cool thing about Star Wars right now is there’s so much you can align yourself with and get invested in, but if you don’t like it, that’s fine.”

Are you excited to see Star Wars: The Acolyte? What do you think of these latest casting details? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below! If you haven’t checked out Disney+ yet and you want to give it a go, you can do that here.

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