‘The Acolyte’ Stars Describe the Show’s Fight Choreography and How it Brings “More Aliens, More Jedi, Less Green Screen”
In the latest episode of Dagobah Dispatch, Entertainment Weekly‘s Star Wars-themed podcast, we can listen to the conversation that the publication had with three stars of The Acolyte back in April during Star Wars Celebration. They are Dafne Keen, Manny Jacinto, and Charlie Barnett, who elaborated more on the upcoming show’s fight sequences and stunt work and what separates the series from all other recent Star Wars projects.
As Manny Jacinto puts it, the fight sequences seek to satisfy fans of The Phantom Menace and “Duel of the Fates”.
“If you loved that sequence with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan and Darth Maul, I think you’re going to enjoy this show.”
Charlie Barnett also chimed in and talked about the stunt work and preparation involved for the show compared to “Duel of the Fates”:
“I will say too — not to shade — but we have a lot more tangible physical moves than I saw in that fight. As badass as it is, there’s a lot more grounded work that goes into our stunt training and our stunt performances.
We have an awesome stunt team, too, doing so much without cables, without CGI, and without a lot of effects. It makes the fight seem so much more visceral. I know I’ve been hit on the head a couple times.”
Dafne Keen, star of hit movies and shows such as Logan and His Dark Materials, also commented on how the action sequences don’t use any guns, are inspired by samurai films, and focus instead on lightsabers and hand-to-hand combat.
“Even the way the stunts have been coordinated, they come from an Asian background. All the fight training we have gone through is so heavily influenced by samurai and martial arts…
There’s a lack of guns, which personally, as someone who loves fighting and stunts and stuff, I love. Because it gives you that body-to-body choreography — that dance feeling. It actually looks like a real fight as opposed to just ‘I point and I shoot,’ which is kind of an easy cop-out in a way.
We have a lot of sabers, and Chris Cowan and Mark Ginther, and Daren Nop have choreographed all of these wonderful, wonderful stunts in such a beautiful way. It’s visually stunning. We watched some stuff the other day and it was just gorgeous. And then we have a bunch of fights as well where there are no sabers. It’s also really fun and does look really gritty and real. It feels like a fight.”
The three actors then shared what they feel separates The Acolyte from the rest of the Star Wars projects going on right now. In response, Jacinto pointed out the family-friendly nature of the show:
“Maybe I’m just biased, but with our show, you can enjoy it with your whole family and understand everything, and be entertained … There’s a high entertainment value.”
Keen seemed to also echo some of this sentiment, pointing towards the age diversity of the show and how that helped to draw her into the series:
“It has a lot of young energy and older energy. It’s very camp. It feels human to me. It feels like a very human, emotional story, wrapped up in this epic thriller. That’s what drew me to the project: how human — how real — it felt.”
Barnett, however, pointed to how the show is partially a response to what some may feel is over-reliance on CGI, and how it aims to give fans a practical feel in its production:
“This is a response to the fans and what they’ve been calling for… I — even as a fan — have been asking for more aliens, more Jedi, more tangible worlds, more builds, less green screen. Just knowing Leslie, being a playwright — being based around structure — she wanted to build all of that into one production and give that to the fans as a ‘Thank you.’ That’s a lot to live up to. I hope that we can live up to it.”
Keen and Jacinto then jumped off of that notion, also acknowledging this is what helped to make the show “go over budget:”
Keen: “The stuff that we watched felt very much like the original trilogy, which I love. It has that kind of feeling.”
Jacinto: “So you see little strings on the ships, because we ran out of money [laughs].”
Keen: “We did run out of money.”
The Acolyte will be Star Wars‘ first live-action foray into the High Republic era, which is currently being explored in Star Wars books and comics and takes place centuries before The Phantom Menace. The narrative centers primarily on its female villains and focuses on reversing the roles of the Jedi and the Sith with the Jedi as “the bad guys.” It’s also been reported that The Acolyte has spent nearly $50 million on pre-production, setting it up to possibly be one of the most expensive Star Wars streaming series yet.
The show is scheduled to release sometime in 2024 on Disney Plus. Feel free to listen to the full episode with the interview attached below.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
