The Acolyte's Manny Jacinto Recalls the Struggles of Keeping Star Wars Secrets

Dafne Keen and Charlie Barnett almost spoiled the Stranger reveal at Star Wars Celebration.

By Jamie Jirak

Star Wars: The Acolyte came to an end earlier this week, and the season featured a lot of huge twists and turns. From surprising cameos to shocking deaths, the latest Disney+ series kept fans on their toes. The cast and crew had to be careful about avoiding spoilers during their press tour, and sometimes slip-ups happened. Warning: Spoilers for The Acolyte ahead... It was revealed in the show's fifth episode that Qimir (Manny Jacinto) was the masked Stranger, and he fought and killed both Yord and Jecki, the Jedis played by Charlie Barnett and Dafne Keen. During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jacinto recalled Keen and Barnett accidentally mentioning his stunt skills. 

"I'm not a big press and publicity type of guy," Jacinto explained. "I have a hard time talking about myself and my work. So whenever I go into something like that, I just have to take on another character. And, having to straight up lie to people's faces, I was like, 'Okay, what is my backstory? What am I doing here?' So it was literally another character that I had to play out of this three-tiered character that I had already just played on The Acolyte. So it was a continuation of the work." 

"There's a clip from Star Wars Celebration where Dafne and Charlie slip up, and they start talking about my stunt work," he added. "These are her words, not mine, but Dafne said, 'Manny is a stunt god.' And then, right away, I was like, 'Yeah, I don't know, guys. I really didn't get to do anything cool.' So I had to backtrack things, but you never know what will happen with those two because they're a hoot. We have an amicable and very friendly and loving relationship even after the execution of their characters." 

In addition to keeping his own character's identity a secret, Jacinto also had to be careful of spoiling big cameos like Yoda.

"Yes, they did. It was also something that I was not too privy to, but there were maybe rumblings about it," Jacinto said when asked if he was kept in the dark about Yoda's cameo. "I heard on the sidelines that it could be the case, but seeing that image on screen was mind-blowing to me just like it was to everybody else. So there's a lot to explore, and fingers crossed we get to explore that."

"Oh, God, all of these Easter eggs, theories and tidbits ... I don't know. I actually don't know why the Kylo Ren theme was playing," Jacinto added. "There are so many theories about the original Knights of Ren, but I don't know, man. I'll bring these possible theories up and ideas to Leslye [Headland], but she already knows about them. So I've got to just keep dancing around these questions."

Manny Jacinto Addresses Osha and Qimir Romance:

acolyte-qimir-osha.jpg
(Photo:

Amandla Stenberg and Manny Jacinto in The Acolyte finale.

- Lucasfilm)

The Acolyte finale ended with Osha (Amandla Stenberg) going off to train with Qimir (Manny Jacinto). Despite the fact that Qimir did some pretty bad things throughout the season, many fans are shipping a romance between him and Osha. The "Oshamir" shippers felt pretty validated when the show ended with the duo together, especially considering Qimir took Osha's hand in a pretty romantic way. While a Season 2 hasn't been confirmed, Jacinto is teasing a possible romance in the future between Qimir and Osha. 

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"In the fan art I've seen, there's a good amount that implies... something between Osha and the Stranger," Jacinto told GQ. "That's something that people, I think, have been yearning for in this genre, or at least in this IP, and I love that people are honing in on it and encouraging it. So I think people can look forward to more of that, possibly. If people want it, we can explore that in a subsequent season."

The Acolyte is now streaming on Disney+.

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