Star Wars: The Acolyte Showrunner Reveals Biggest Season One Regret

Leslye Headland wishes The Acolyte could have included more of Vernestra's backstory.

By Jamie Jirak

Star Wars: The Acolyte came to an end this week, and the series marked the first live-action project from Lucasfilm to be set in the High Republic era. While most of the characters in the show were new, The Acolyte's creator Leslye Headland did bring in some familiar faces and names, including one fan-favorite character from the High Republic novels: Jedi Knight Vernestra Rwoh. The character is played by Rebecca Henderson, who also happens to be Headland's wife. However, Headland wasn't playing favorites. In fact, she recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that her biggest regret is not telling more of Vernestra's story. 

"That was something I kept trying to slip in, but there was so much," Headland shared with a sigh when asked about including Vernestra's backstory. "It's a really packed season, and I love that. My goal is to explore as many nooks and crannies as I can in the time I am given, and Star Wars is the perfect place to do that because there's nothing but good nooks and crannies – all of this world that's available to you that you can dig into. So of course there were things that I didn't get to explore."  

"We wanted to answer a lot of questions," Headland explained. "We wanted to show Qimir's master. We weren't going to wait a second season for that. We wanted to wrap up the twin storyline. We were not going to leave everybody hanging. They've sat through all of this, and we want to reward people for watching."

"The dangling of other stuff, especially the legacy stuff like what's Manny's [Jacinto] name, Yoda, Plagueis, and what the background is with Vernestra and her relationship with the Senate and how that's going to unfold with this sort of internal review of the Jedi – where does that lead? So it was a lot of: How is this going to fit in to what we later see? That was the step I wanted to save for the tease, as well as Osha and the Stranger's relationship. I felt like that was a really good thing to tease as well. Mostly, I need a full season for that," Headland added.

Will The Acolyte Get a Season 2?

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(Photo:

Amandla Stenberg and Manny Jacinto in The Acolyte finale.

- Lucasfilm)

Now that Star Wars: The Acolyte has come to an end, fans are eager to find out if a second season is on the way. While the last live-action show in the franchise, Star Wars: Ahsoka, was greenlit for a second season, it took about three months between the show's season finale and Season 2 announcement. While Headland has made it clear she has future ideas for the show, she recently admitted to Entertainment Weekly that she hasn't heard news about the show's future.

"Nothing," Headland replied when asked if she's heard anything about another season of The Acolyte. She even used both hands to make a big zero to emphasize her answer. "You have to take a break," she continued. "Especially after something like this. I don't even know how many years my brain has been going, 'Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, Acolyte, Acolyte, Acolyte' – just constantly solving problems, constantly thinking about it. It is very weird to now be in a place where I don't need to do that. I always say to budding writers, 'The most important thing that you can do is sit around and do nothing. Because the second you start to manufacture a story, you're going to get stressed out and the story can't start that way.'"

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"My brain is still doing it," she added with a laugh. "It's almost like if you're running, you can't just stop, can't shut off."

The Acolyte is now streaming on Disney+.

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