The Acolyte has come to an end with big reveals, big connections, and a new status quo beginning to ripple its way across the galaxy far, far away. But while io9 has already sat down with one of the dark agents shaping that status quo, it’s only fair that we speak to their apprentice, too, isn’t it?
The Acolyte‘s season finale presents the culmination of a long, strange journey for twin sisters Osha and Mae. With their roles essentially reversed—Mae’s quest for revenge against the Jedi that upended her life climaxing with her choosing to have her memory wiped to keep Osha safe, while Osha herself embraced the darkness simmering within her to take Mae’s place as the apprentice of the mysterious Stranger—the stage is set for a tumultuous time in the Star Wars galaxy. To find out more about Osha and Mae’s divergent paths, and their relationship to the dark side and to the Stranger particularly, we spoke with Acolyte star Amandla Stenberg to look back.
James Whitbrook, io9: What was it like for you on set as an actor having to not just play Osha and Mae across the series, but exist in that space where you’re getting into the headspace of these two sisters at the same time?
Amandla Stenberg: Oh yeah, it was so fascinating. There was a few different things for me to think about when I thought about their physicality, how they might be alike in that way, how they might be different. First off, I thought it would just be more interesting if they were very different people. I wrote extensive backstories [for both Osha and Mae], and thought a lot about the idea of nature versus nurture—how they might have been when they were very small, and how ideologically might have been very different from each other, just combing through the subtext of those flashback episodes. That was really helpful for me in writing those backstories.
But then I also thought about the progressions of their lives, and how that shaped them—I can talk about it more in a sort of lore-y way now. Sol says in the finale that they are the same person. And as we got into that discussion, because, you know, there’s this history in Star Wars of clones. I talked to Leslye [Headland, The Acolyte showrunner] when we were going into pre-production, I said “well, are they clones of each other? Does that mean I should play them as the same person?” and that’s when she said “No, it’s going to be related to a vergence in the Force.” [When I heard that I said] okay, it’s going to have to do with the manipulation of the Force, and midi-chlorians—and I heard about their mystical origin story. I thought “well, then if they are the same person, then there’s this opportunity for me to think of them as representations of the light and the dark side of the Force,” and for their essences to be in flux in relation to each other, like yin and yang.
io9: I’m glad you mentioned the Brendok episodes—obviously you don’t appear in those, but they’re crucial to our understanding of Osha and Mae as characters. Did you get to be on set during filming those episodes, or to interact with Lauren and Leah [Brady, the twin actors for Young Mae and Osha]?
Stenberg: So I actually flew out to LA months before I even got to London for pre-production, and I read with several twin sets of actresses. When Leah and Lauren came in, I just immediately fell in love with them. We bonded so hard, very quickly—we played together, and we talked, and then I read the scenes with them and I gave them notes. So going into filming, we already had this relationship, and I got very close to them. While we were filming I’d take them out for high tea and try to spend as much time with them. There were definitely elements of [their performances] that I based my characterization off of as well. There were consistencies I wanted there to be from them as children, and them as adults. Children are just so beautiful, I just learned so much from them as well. They really inspired me and helped me create the adult versions of Osha and Mae.
io9: Looking back to the finale, I wanted to ask about a big moment for Osha, bleeding Sol’s lightsaber. What was that moment like for you, what was going through your head, for how Osha felt, in the moment that switch happens?
Stenberg: I think of it as kind of like… sort of a victorious tragedy, or a tragic victory. One of the first things I thought about was Anakin Skywalker, and the sort of incredulous response you can have to your own darkness. Osha is going through so much at that point: shock, embodiment, reclamation of her own I power. I just tried to balance those things as best I could. It felt important to me that her sort-of-victory was the permission that she gave herself, and the permission she was given by having all of the truth finally at her disposal, to feel things and to lean into her own emotionality. Because she’s someone who has lived a very emotionally repressed life up to that point. That felt to me like the best representation of her turn to the dark side, but also this shock at your own power—we’re often afraid of our own power.
io9: Building off of that, we see Osha in a role-reversal with Mae and go off to become the Stranger’s new Acolyte. Manny Jacinto has spoken in prior interviews about the sensuality and seduction in Osha and the Stranger’s relationship, but what was it like for you to play that relationship with him, in contrast to playing Mae’s relationship with him?
Stenberg: It’s so interesting because people love the romantic, or sort of seduction side of their relationship. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of it actively while navigating that part of Osha’s trajectory—I think the reason why it reads with so much tension, is because Osha is finally being given the opportunity. She’s fully being seen by someone else, in a real way, you know, the darkest and deepest parts of herself are being seen. And I think there’s something very romantic about that.
There’s also something romantic about this ideological union that’s happening, of these two people who come to believe the same things about the world. I think that just creates a sort of profound connection between people, and that’s why it feels that way. I’m glad that worked, because that was our hope. We wanted there to be this romantic tension and the sense of a union, while also not explicitly portraying it that way—just portraying the storyline, which is this young woman who has not had the opportunity to fully be herself, and be comfortable. And then she finds a person, and a place, where she does.
The Acolyte is now streaming on Disney+.
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