Leslye Headland has been telling “Star Wars” tales onscreen since she was a teen. Ostracized in school for being completely different, she retreated inward, making stop-motion movies starring her motion figures.
So when she discovered success as an grownup in Hollywood — Headland helped create “Russian Doll,” the 2019 Netflix comedy starring Natasha Lyonne — and bought the prospect to create an precise “Star Wars” present, it was the conclusion of a lifelong dream.
And an opportunity for humiliating failure. On a galactic scale.
“I primarily cold-called Lucasfilm and, after loads of conversations, discovered myself pitching a present — totally elated, my final profession aim, the fruits of my fandom,” Headland mentioned. “On the similar time, I might be mendacity if I mentioned I wasn’t scared. There may be a lot stress. It’s excessive. I had by no means achieved something this massive earlier than.”
Headland’s present, “The Acolyte,” will debut on Disney+ on June 4. Costing roughly $180 million (for eight episodes) and taking 4 years to make, it makes an attempt two feats without delay: pleasing old-school “Star Wars” followers — who can appear unpleasable — whereas telling a completely new story, one which requires no prior data of “Star Wars” and that showcases ladies and other people of colour.
For the trustworthy, “The Acolyte” serves up scads of Jedi, a franchise basic that the opposite live-action “Star Wars” TV reveals have depicted sparingly or under no circumstances. The opening scene in “The Acolyte” takes place in an eatery crowded with colourful aliens, a callback to the Mos Eisley cantina from the primary “Star Wars” film, in 1977.
Different shout-outs to core followers — we see you, we haven’t forgotten about you — are sprinkled into the dialogue: “Could the drive be with you” and “I’ve a nasty feeling about this” makes an early look.
On the similar time, “The Acolyte” embraces what some individuals name “New Star Wars,” an period outlined by range and enlargement past the Skywalker saga, which began with Disney’s buy of the franchise in 2012.
Amandla Stenberg stars as a dreadlocked warrior who has an advanced relationship with a Jedi grasp performed by Lee Jung-jae from “Squid Sport,” in his first English-speaking position. Jodie Turner-Smith (“Queen & Slim”) performs the lesbian chief of a regal coven of witches, whereas the Filipino-Canadian actor Manny Jacinto (“The Good Place”) seems as a shadowy dealer. In one in every of her most action-oriented roles since “The Matrix,” Carrie-Anne Moss performs a steely Jedi named Grasp Indara.
“The Acolyte” additionally breaks new floor behind the digicam: Whereas ladies have directed episodes of reveals like “The Mandalorian” and “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Headland, 43, is the primary to create a “Star Wars” collection.
“It was like engaged on a razor’s edge,” she mentioned throughout a Zoom interview, pushing her oversize glasses greater on her nostril. “You’re pondering, ‘That is what individuals need from “Star Wars.” That is what individuals don’t need.’ It might probably mess along with your head.”
“Throughout the inventive course of,” she continued, “I needed to give myself the forgiveness, as an artist, to fall off the razor — so long as I bought again up. That was my promise to myself.”
From the second that any new “Star Wars” challenge comes into public view — Disney introduced “The Acolyte” in 2020 — followers claw for data and choose aside what they discover. It’s a part of what makes “Star Wars” so highly effective: Folks care. However the consideration additionally creates issues.
Rumors can solidify into details. Some “Star Wars” obsessives, as an example, have fearful that Headland’s present “breaks canon,” or tinkers with already-established story strains within the franchise — the last word “Star Wars” crime. It doesn’t.
Actually, Headland selected to put “The Acolyte” on the very starting of the “Star Wars” timeline so canonical points could be minimal. The present is a mystery-thriller — somebody is killing Jedis — set at a time when the Jedi are at their peak, the pre-“Phantom Menace” period that has been explored in “Star Wars” novels however by no means onscreen. The one character in “The Acolyte” that beforehand existed wherever within the franchise is a Jedi Grasp from novels named Vernestra Rwoh. (Headland forged her spouse, Rebecca Henderson, within the position, giving her a lightsaber that may remodel right into a whip.)
“Leslye needed this present to be accessible — no homework wanted earlier than watching,” mentioned Jocelyn Bioh, the Ghanaian-American author. Headland added Bioh to the writing crew for “The Acolyte” particularly as a result of Bioh was not a “Star Wars” devotee.
“She requested me what I knew about ‘Star Wars,’ and my reply was, ‘Harrison Ford runs round area with an enormous canine?’” Bioh recalled, laughing. “And Leslye mentioned, ‘You’re employed.’”
“She needed to probably invite in new followers — individuals like me,” Bioh mentioned.
The primary “Acolyte” trailer, launched in March, racked up 51.3 million views in its first 24 hours, a report for any live-action “Star Wars” collection, together with “The Mandalorian,” in line with Lucasfilm. Sneak-peek “Acolyte” footage, launched in theaters in early Could, highlighted the present’s distinctive martial arts sequences; fan websites immediately deemed the preventing fashion Power Fu.
However a loud, primordial a part of the “Star Wars” fandom has pushed again in predictable style.
“Why are there so many ladies, women and minority characters more and more dominating the ranks of Jedi?” reads a touch upon “The Acolyte” trailer, with others expressing an identical worldview.
It’s a model of the identical misogyny and racism that greeted Rey, the feminine Jedi (performed by Daisy Ridley) who made her debut in “The Power Awakens” in 2015, and that drove Kelly Marie Tran off social media when she appeared in “The Final Jedi” (2017). Kathleen Kennedy, who runs Lucasfilm, has additionally skilled it, with “South Park” harshly attacking her in an episode final yr. The cartoon depicted Kennedy giving the identical suggestions to “Star Wars” creators again and again: “Put a chick in it! Make her lame and homosexual!”
Some trolls have nicknamed Headland’s collection “The Wokelyte.”
In a quick phone interview, Kennedy’s assist for “The Acolyte” was steadfast. “My perception is that storytelling does should be consultant of all individuals,” she mentioned. “That’s a straightforward determination for me.”
“Working inside these large franchises now, with social media and the extent of expectation — it’s terrifying,” Kennedy continued. “I believe Leslye has struggled a little bit bit with it. I believe loads of the ladies who step into ‘Star Wars’ battle with this a bit extra. Due to the fan base being so male dominated, they often get attacked in methods that may be fairly private.”
Headland has tried to restrict her publicity to the web dialog, each good and dangerous, as a substitute counting on mates for “climate reviews.”
“As a fan myself, I understand how irritating some ‘Star Wars’ storytelling prior to now has been,” Headland mentioned, declining to quote particular examples. “I’ve felt it myself.”
She adopted up with a textual content message. “I stand by my empathy for ‘Star Wars’ followers,” she wrote. “However I wish to be clear. Anybody who engages in bigotry, racism or hate speech … I don’t contemplate a fan.”
“Star Wars” initiatives aren’t identified for private or idiosyncratic filmmaking. The manufacturing and advertising and marketing budgets are just too excessive; the storytelling should attraction to the widest doable viewers to make the numbers work.
Rian Johnson, who directed “The Final Jedi,” informed The New York Occasions in 2017 that he didn’t even attempt to put his personal stamp on the franchise. “It might be dangerous information for those who got here into this saying, ‘How do I make this mine?’” he mentioned.
Kennedy, nevertheless, pushed Headland to just do that with “The Acolyte.”
“You’ve written an excellent ‘Star Wars’ present,” Kennedy informed her in 2019 in response to early scripts. “Now go write a Leslye Headland present.”
Kennedy had learn one in every of Headland’s performs, “Cult of Love,” which explores an advanced relationship between siblings. “It’s about her private expertise,” Kennedy mentioned. “And it was simply so effectively achieved and extremely emotional. I keep in mind studying that and saying, ‘Leslye, that is precisely what it is best to faucet into as you write this story for us.’”
Explaining precisely how Headland took Kennedy’s recommendation would spoil a serious plot level in “Acolyte.” Let’s simply say that Headland heightened a conflict between characters.
“I’ve a really strained relationship with my youngest sister, and I really feel like one of many causes it’s strained is that we each see one another because the dangerous man,” Headland mentioned. “And if I used to be going to inform a narrative about dangerous guys, it appeared to me that the place to begin needs to be a familial relationship the place one particular person is adamantly satisfied of her correctness and the opposite particular person can also be adamantly satisfied of her correctness.”
“We don’t communicate,” Headland added. “I believe this might be a shock to her.”
She wouldn’t say something extra on the subject, besides to emphasise that she has a great relationship together with her different sister, who helped make a visible presentation that Headland used to pitch “The Acolyte” to Lucasfilm. (Headland described her idea within the assembly as “‘Frozen’ meets ‘Kill Invoice.’” Kennedy purchased it on the spot.)
Stenberg, the present’s star, mentioned “Leslye actually is pushed by emotion and coronary heart and relationships. So regardless that our present is throughout the ‘Star Wars’ universe and set in outer area, in a galaxy far, distant, it’s actually a household drama.”
Headland had directed indie movies (“Bachelorette,” “Sleeping With Different Folks”) and served as showrunner for “Russian Doll,” the hit Netflix comedy a couple of New Yorker (Natasha Lyonne) caught in a reincarnation loop. However she had by no means managed a big-budget manufacturing.
What she lacked in expertise, she made up for with “Star Wars” geekdom. Headland turned a “Star Wars” superfan as a teen. It was an apocalyptic interval of her life, or no less than it felt that means.
“I had no mates,” she recalled. “I ate my lunch within the lavatory.”
She discovered solace among the many misfits in George Lucas’s area operas, discovering books like Timothy Zahn’s “Inheritor to the Empire” (1991) and amassing motion figures. When Lucas launched the “particular editions” of his first three “Star Wars” films, Headland lined up at her native theater on opening night time. A couple of years in the past, she had Ralph McQuarrie’s idea artwork for Princess Leia tattooed on her proper hand.
“‘Star Wars’ has been part of my persona since I can keep in mind,” Headland mentioned. “So engaged on this present has been a dream. I needed to take my shot.”
She paused for a second. “If it doesn’t succeed, it’s due to me,” she mentioned. “That’s actually scary to consider.”
“No, no — I’m not going to go there,” she mentioned, climbing again on that razor’s edge.
