Imagine Walter White with a lightsaber.
Warning: This article contains spoilers about the two-episode premiere ofStar Wars: The Acolyte.
Well, that certainly didnt last long.
Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) on ‘The Acolyte’.Lucasfilm
But show creatorLeslye Headlandsays there was also another reason to kill off Moss character so soon.
And it felt like the best I could come up with was killing Carrie-Anne Moss.
It was icing Trinity and just having everyone go, I’m sorry.
Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Mae (Amandla Stenberg) on ‘The Acolyte’.Lucasfilm
What’s happening in this?
All of that contributed to me understanding what I wanted the physicality of the character to be.
While Mae is obviously a super powerful warrior, Stenberg did not want to simply show power.
Mae (Amandla Stenberg) and Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) on ‘The Acolyte’.Lucasfilm
And that’s what I really love about Mae and all of her choreography.
Of course, Stenberg is not just playing one character, but two.
So how does her approach to playing the pair take into consideration their similarities and differences?
“I think of them as always in flux with each other.
So a quality that one of them might really be exhibiting, the other one is lacking.
I think of them as always kind of an interplay with each other.
For Stenberg, the interplay between Mae and Osha leans into a longStar Warstradition.
I think of them as yin and yang, she says of the pair.
“That was really important to me.
And we have some of that imagery in the show.
Yin and yang has also been important imagery in the Star Wars universe throughThe Last JediandThe Clone Wars.
And I love that kind of part of the allure ofStar Wars.
She even references a famousClone Warsinstallment that was revisited at the end of theAhsokaseason finale.
One of my favorite episodes ofClone Warsis about the father and the daughter and the son.
And these are the main forces that govern the universe.
Even if that means slaying a Jedi Master in the process.
