Star Wars: The Acolyte Showrunner Teases Jedi Mystery

Star Wars: The Acolyte’s showrunner is teasing the big mystery at the heart of this Disney+ series. Empire Magazine has a brand-new glossy cover story on The Acolyte and the show’s central mystery. Someone’s going around hunting Jedi and the remaining Force-users need to get to the bottom of it. Leslye Headland compared her current work with Star Wars to her previous work with Russian Doll. It’s a bit of a mystery how things got to the point they were in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The Acolyte is positioned during The High Republic, and that means the only way for things to go for the Jedi is down. 

“I was very interested in, how did the Jedi get to where they are in Phantom Menace?” Headland explained to the magazine. “You’re definitely getting a sense that, with the Jedi, the writing may be on the wall.”

The showrunner would also mention the more contracted nature of this conflict. The Acolyte is playing with Star Wars, sure, but it’s also exploring a very personal story. “The quote-unquote ‘war’ of this Star Wars is a much smaller, more personal one,” Headland shared. “The war between people, the war between characters.”

“It’s one story with several reveals, and new clues and new information each episode,” she mused. “It’s not just a mystery that you have to find out. It’s not unlike Russian Doll. It’s almost like a spiral — it digs deeper and deeper and deeper.”

Some New Jedi Faces

Since the moment the series was announced, Star Wars: The Acolyte has been surrounded with curiosity. Dafne Keen’s Padawan Jecki is right at the heart of this mystery investigating the disturbances. Sith are not exactly common in The High Republic. So, their presence would spook even established Jedi. Jecki and her mentor Master Sol have to be ready for the coming threat.

“Well, I’m very excited that we know her name now, because it was secret for so long. And I’m very happy that I get to say that she’s an alien and that she’s a Padawan and that she’s a Jedi,” Keen told EW of her character. “She’s a mixed species — part Theelin, part human. She’s very cool and I have some very cool fights I do with the lightsaber. I really love her. She’s a great character and was really fun to play. I’m very excited that the trailer came out. I was buzzing for days.”

She added, “I’d say she is a very dedicated Padawan. She’s definitely in awe of [Lee Jung-jae’s Jedi Master Sol] in a very kind of sweet way. She thinks the absolute world of him in a way that I think they have a very sweet relationship, but she’s much more aware of the authority difference than, for example, Obi-Wan and Anakin. She’s very much like, ‘No, he’s the master and I’m the Padawan and he’s perfect. And everything he says, I have to follow to the T.’”

Are you excited about Star Wars: The Acolyte? Let us know in the comments down below!