Who’s ready for a whole new era of Star Wars? With Andor well underway on Disney+ (really, it’s very very good) and The Mandalorian back in just a few months, the team of Lucasfilm is getting stuck into something new – a show long-confirmed, now finally in production. The Acolyte, led by Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, has officially started shooting in the UK – the first screen Star Wars project to depict The High Republic era of the galaxy far, far away. Currently being explored in an extensive series of novels and comics, The High Republic is an era of relative peace and prosperity in the galaxy, a few hundred years before The Skywalker Saga – but with evil rising in the shadows that leads to the eventual fall of the Jedi Order that we know.
Most importantly, the cast of The Acolyte has now been confirmed – and it is a stacked roster of talent. As well as the previously-announced lead of Amandla Stenberg, the series is confirmed to also include Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae, The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto, His Dark Materials’ Dafne Keen, Queen & Slim’s Jodie Turner-Smith, Russian Doll stars Rebecca Henderson and Charlie Barnett, 1917’s Dean-Charles Chapman, and the legendary Carrie-Anne Moss. Yes, Trinity has entered the chat.
For now, most things about the show remain a mystery – when it will arrive, who anyone is playing, and what exactly the story is. All we do know is that The Acolyte is “a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.” With that cast, those creatives, and the daring narrative swings of Andor showing just how bold a Star Wars series can be? We’re acolytes already.