The Acolyte is only a few short months away and Empire Magazine continue their very welcome GFFA deluge with Joonas Suotamo discussing his role in the show as Kelnacca, the distinctive wookiee Jedi who looks set to play a key role in the show. Having played Chewbacca in four of the five most recent big screen adventures as well as playing the Scourge in Willow on Disney Plus, Suotamo playing a Jedi and a wookiee was a long-held dream come true.
“Ever since [I was] five years old, I’ve been fantasising about being a Jedi, like every kid,” Suotamo tells Empire. “When the word ‘Jedi’ was first mentioned [in talks for The Acolyte], I felt really excited – like a little kid who finally gets his favourite toy on his birthday.”
Shaping an all-new kind of Wookiee meant going back to what Suotamo learned while playing Chewbacca. “Peter told me right from the get-go that Chewbacca is a mime character,” Suotamo recalls. “The audience doesn’t understand what he’s saying exactly, but they [interpret] his mannerisms, and every little twitch, and every little movement, and roar.” From there, it was a case of using those principles to make his Acolyte character something new and different. “Kelnacca being a Jedi, that sets certain expectations to how you carry yourself in the line of duty,” explains Suotamo, promising a less impulsive fuzzball. “There are certain assumptions that can be made as to whether he lets his emotions take control of him to the extent that Chewbacca would, for example. It was very interesting to bake that into the character and try to personify that on screen.”
The latest issue of Empire hit shelves today, and it’s packed with the latest news and interviews from The Acolyte.
