Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy Says She Told ‘The Acolyte’ Creator “You’ve Written A Great Star Wars Show, Now Go Write A Leslye Headland Show”
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has revealed that, in an effort to help breathe new life into the all-but-completely-dead franchise, she directly advised The Acolyte creator and showrunner Leslye Headland to make the upcoming Star Wars series uniquely hers.
Kennedy divulged her part in The Acolyte‘s creation during a recent interview given to The New York Times’ Brooks Barnes in promotion of the series’ upcoming premiere.
Recalling her previous discussions with Headland, the Lucasfilm boss told Barnes that after reading early drafts of the series’ script in 2019, she replied to the showrunner’s work with the declaration, “You’ve written a great Star Wars show. Now go write a Leslye Headland show.”
To this end, Kennedy then revealed that her faith in Headland’s storytelling was inspired by her play Cult of Love – the drama piece centers on a Christian family whose relationships with both each other and God begin to unravel during one particularly rough Christmas gathering – and in particular its thematic dissection of sibling bonds.
“It’s about her personal experience,” explained Kennedy. “And it was just so well done and incredibly emotional. I remember reading that and saying, ‘Leslye, this is exactly what you should tap into as you write this story for us.'”
Providing insight as to how exactly she let her personal life influence The Acolyte‘s narrative, Headland herself elaborated, “I have a very strained relationship with my youngest sister, and I feel like one of the reasons it is strained is that we both see each other as the bad guy.”
“And if I was going to tell a story about bad guys,” she further noted, “it seemed to me that the place to start should be a familial relationship where one person is adamantly convinced of her correctness and the other person is also adamantly convinced of her correctness.”
Briefly speaking to her own thoughts on the show’s direction, star Amandla Stenberg added, “Leslye really is driven by emotion and heart and relationships. So even though our show is within the ‘Star Wars’ universe and set in outer space, in a galaxy far, far away, it’s really a family drama.”
Meanwhile, as to how The Acolyte will actually play with the larger sandbox of the Star Wars universe, Headland explained during at the April 2023 Star Wars celebration, “What I wanted it to introduce the fans to the concept, too, was ‘How do you reconcile the Jedi at the height of their power, the Galaxy at the height of this Age of Enlightenment and peace, and who George says they become at the top of The Phantom Menace?'”
“And to me that meant ‘Why don’t you tell a story about Star Wars from the perspective of the villains, of the bad guys?'” she detailed. “And if those bad guys are outnumbered at this point then that means that you get this opportunity to see how the Jedi very subtly go from who they were in the High Republic and the Old Republic and who they became by the time you’re watching episodes one, two, and three.”
All four fans still interested in Disney’s Star Wars offerings can catch The Acolyte when it drops out of hyperspace and onto Disney Plus on June 4th.
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