Viewers of The Good Place are well aware of Manny Jacinto and his role as the kind-hearted Jason Mendoza, a character who spent a good portion of the first season completely silent masquerading as a Taiwanese monk with a vow of silence only for it to be revealed he was a wannabe DJ with the IQ of a seven-year-old. He’s not a wannabe or a DJ in The Acolyte (unless DJ stands for ‘Destroy Jedi’) and Leslye Headland explains why he was the performer she wanted to play Qimir, also known as The Stranger.
Inverse: So the bloodbath in Episode 5, was that rewritten to accommodate more of The Stranger, or was that always his grand entrance?
Leslye Headland: He always took over Episode 5. He was always going to kill Jecki and Yord. The red shirts were supposed to be a misdirect. Like “Oh, he’s going to kill all those people.” Nope, he’s killing people left and right. It was just so important to be like “We don’t know who’s going to survive this.” I have so many of my favorite little moments that Manny does in that episode, but when he kicks Mae down and she goes down to her knees, I’m always like, “Jesus.” It still scares me because I know he’s probably not going to kill her because that’s the main character, but because he just killed a main character, I’m also a little scared.
Inverse: It is funny that even you were watching like “What’s going to happen?” I guess that’s a credit to Manny’s work.
Leslye headland: As a filmmaker, in my head, I’m like, “I’m positive this is going to work. If I can get Manny Jacinto, this will work. If I don’t, this character won’t exist. We’re going to have to start from scratch and figure out something else.” I was so grateful he did the show, but he surpassed my expectations. There’s some sort of mixture of strength and existential dread and violence in him… And then his little statement of purpose that comes right before that moment, you’re like, “Man, somebody must’ve tried to take this guy’s freedom.” Because he is not f****** around in terms of protecting himself and what he has to do. He sees Jedi specifically as the faction that is keeping him from being free to the point that he could break a Jedi’s neck while making complete eye contact with another Jedi and just have that be it.
