‘The Acolyte’: Jodie Turner-Smith on Working With Director Kogonada; She Had No Scenes With Amandla Stenberg
With more than a year to go before The Acolyte hits Disney Plus, we are getting small bites of information every so often about the series, but we’ll take all of them. While promoting the new Netflix film Murder Mystery 2, actress Jodie Turner-Smith spoke to Collider about her role in the upcoming Star Wars series from Leslye Headland, revealing a few behind-the-scenes details and teasing its epic scope.
In her phrasing, she made it sound like she’s already wrapped filming (despite the series still having another month of principal photography left) and confirmed that After Yang director Kogonada worked on the series, as Discussing Film had reported; in fact, the two of them worked together on at least one of the episodes. Said Turner-Smith about changing tones from Murder Mystery 2 to what she did in The Acolyte:
“Obviously, the subject matter is different. It’s different when everything that you’re doing is light-hearted, and that’s not what I was doing for Star Wars. But I was working with my favorite director that I’ve worked with so far, Kogonada, and under the leadership of Leslye Headland. It is incredible to see. I can’t wait to see how this show turns out.”
However, she did not get to work with series lead Amandla Stenberg, possibly confirming that her role will either be small or part of a side storyline that will not involve Stenberg. Despite that, the actress had the chance to see the team in scenes she wasn’t involved in, and teased its epic scale:
“Amandla [Stenberg] is such an incredible performer. I, unfortunately, didn’t have any scenes with her, but I got to see a little bit of what they’ve been doing, and I think it’s gonna be epic, and it’s nothing that anyone has seen before inside of that universe.”
Details on Turner-Smith’s character are still under wraps, but she did confirm to Collider she is not playing a Jedi; in fact, she did not get to wield a lightsaber (though she may have had a cool weapon nonetheless):
“I didn’t get to use a lightsaber… but I did… not get to use a lightsaber.”
Well, that was intriguing. We might get more details in just a few days, during Star Wars Celebration. The show, which has its main base of operations 40 miles west of London, could be part of the main panel on opening day, the Lucasfilm Studio Showcase panel. Stay tuned for more!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
