The final episode of The Acolyte lands on Disney Plus in the States tomorrow and Wednesday morning in the UK and around the world, and StarWars.com take a closer look at the stunts of the series, a debut season that has been filled with action, new worlds and the establishment of a new era ripe for expansion.
From the start, it was essential that the crew help series stars Amandla Stenberg and Jacinto, among others, define their fighting style to uniquely incorporate the character, performer, and storyline into each high kick and lightsaber clash. “Leslye loves it. She’s a Star Wars geek, of course, and she loves kung fu fighting,” says Ginther.
“The first thing that Leslye said to me when I met her is that she wanted to incorporate a lot of wushu and kung fu and samurai flair into the action of The Acolyte,” Cowan adds. “And as soon as she said those three things, my face lit up because my dream is to direct martial arts.”
“She wanted a mixture of these different styles,” Ginther continues. “We needed to bring out a separate fighting style in Mae and Osha,” — both characters played by Stenberg. “Mae moves like a tiger,” Junchang adds.
“Mae’s fighting style is very direct, very erratic, very ‘I will cut somebody,’” Cowan says. “She doesn’t care about the subtleties. She’s just going to run straight at her opponent and start throwing hands.”
For the first sequence in the series, a bold cold open pitting Mae against Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a raucous fight inside a noodle bar, the stunt crew incorporated an homage to Kill Bill in the choreography then dug into the psychology behind each character’s tactics. “Leslye definitely wanted to try something different with this opening fight in that it’s primarily hand to hand. That’s something that we really don’t get to see the Jedi or Force sensitives or Sith show off,” Cowan says. “Indara and Sol sort of have a similar approach in that they try to de-escalate the situation. They’re not just going to whip out their lightsabers.”
To hear more, check out our roundtable with showrunner Leslye Headland on Making Tracks.
