'The Acolyte': Leslye Headland Explains Hiring A Writer Who Hasn't Watched 'Star Wars' To Help With Her Disney+ Series

I have a confession to make—I don’t really enjoy 90% of “Star Wars” media. The original trilogy is great, obviously. The prequels are meh. The sequels are…well, not great. And I haven’t really watched any of the animated stuff or read the books and/or comics. That is to say, I know about “Star Wars” but I don’t know “Star Wars.” And this is the type of barrier that I think makes me lose interest in Disney+ series such as “The Mandalorian,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Andor,” and “The Book of Boba Fett.” I just am not excited. However, if there is one series coming up that actually has me excited, it’s “The Acolyte” from writer/producer/showrunner Leslye Headland. And in a new interview with AV Club, she explained exactly the reason why people who aren’t superfans of “Star Wars” should be excited about her upcoming series.

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Back in December, Disney+ and Lucasfilm announced a ton of new “Star Wars” streaming content, including a new series from Leslye Headland, titled “Star Wars: The Acolyte.” This series stood out from the rest because even though we don’t know much about it at all, there’s the promise that the show is working in unexplored parts of the franchise, perhaps serving as a series that could entice newbie/moderate fans of the galaxy far, far away, in addition to the diehards. And judging by Headland’s description of how she hired writers for the show, it’s clear she’s looking to find folks that aren’t steeped in the lore like Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau.

“Mostly what I looked for were people that I felt could execute a great script, number one,” Headland explained. “And then in the job interview, just really talking to people who had different life experiences than I did, and had different connections to ‘Star Wars’ than I did.”

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And that idea of having “different connections” to the franchise ran the gamut of people who were longtime fans but didn’t follow the animated stuff from Dave Filoni to folks that didn’t really know anything about “Star Wars” but were willing to learn.

“There were people like myself that were like later-in-life [Dave] Filoni acolytes,” she said. “I literally had one writer that was like, ‘I have never seen any of them. I’ve never seen any “Star Wars” media. And she’s texting me before we started the room, she’s like, ‘Luke and Leia are brother and sister, what the…?’ [Laughs.]”

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Headland continued, “And it was so great, because I would really love to know from someone who is not fully immersed in this fandom, what do you think about the pitch we just made? So while she did her due diligence and did a lot of background work and research, at the same time, she was somebody that we would kind of talk to and say, ‘Okay, so if we take all the kind of signifiers out of it, and this is “Star Wars” version of X, what does it mean to you?’ She would be able to give some feedback: ‘Well, I’m kind of wondering what’s going on with this character. And in this scene, I’m wondering why so-and-so isn’t saying this.’ So that was what I really wanted—an active conversation between my writers and myself, and not so much a room full of people that would kind of just automatically agree with what I say.”

So, while Headland’s “Star Wars” bonafides are extensive (she also goes into detail in the interview about her longtime love of the franchise), it’s clear the showrunner is hoping to carve a new path for “The Acolyte” using quality writers that don’t necessarily worship at the altar of George Lucas. And there’s something awfully exciting about that, right?