The newly revealed villain talks about killing all those Jedi.
Warning: This article contains spoilers aboutStar Wars: The Acolyteepisode 5.
Now he can add another to the list.
Manny Jacinto on ‘The Acolyte’.Lucasfilm Ltd
And I was just like, “Let me do everything.
I want to do everything.”
And they let me do most of it.
Manny Jacinto on ‘The Acolyte’.Lucasfilm Ltd
I just felt so gratified to be able to jump into that suit, jump into that helmet.
I mean, it was a pain in the butt.
you’re able to’t see.
Manny Jacinto of ‘The Acolyte’ at Star Wars Celebration 2023 EW Portraits.Rachell Smith
But luckily, I had a good amount of training to just prepare myself for those elements beforehand.
I was wondering what the visibility was like and how you were seeing through that thing.
I don’t know if you have any peripheral vision at all.
Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, and Charlie Barnett of ‘The Acolyte’ at Star Wars Celebration 2023.Rachell Smith
I should show you the prototype that we had.
We had three different masks.
We had one which was the hero mask, which is what it looks like on screen.
And then you have one stunt mask, which have eye holes that are a bit bigger.
And then the third one, which is just even bigger eye slits and a bigger breathing hole.
What was it like filmingfight scene after fight scene in episode 5?
You mix it up with pretty much everybody.
I had almost four months to train for that flight scene.
We worked on everything.
We did boxing, we worked on kicks, we worked on all the choreography.
They conditioned my body so that I could get through this five-person fight scene.
So what is your take on this character of Stranger?
We really approached it in that key in of sense.
Its the concept of the uncanny.
It can be a stumble in a person’s walk or a twitch in somebody’s eye.
Obviously that he wants an apprentice, but what is his driving force?
He embraces his anger, his emotions, and the fact that he can’t be that.
And to be able to spread that philosophy to somebody else, to an acolyte, basically.
Tell me about filming the death scenes with Dafne and Charlie, especially that neck snapping scene?
We were talking about how this guy doesn’t play fair.
He just doesn’t abide by the rules.
It feels like it’s like a cheap shot, almost.
And then I talked to Leslye and we were on the same page about it.
So many things are happening.
You have me getting unmasked, you have Jeckis death, and you have the reveal of the weapon.
What’s a cool way to do it?
But our stunt guys came up with that sequence and I thought it was just beautiful.
He just sells it.
I know this was a very collaborative process and you had suggestions for your character along the way.
What was that process like?
I remember we were rehearsing the initial scene with me and Mae and we were having trouble with it.
And then I remember Leslye goes, So Mae comes in here and then Qimir is just waking up.
And then he would say… and she just points at me.
I paused and I’m like, Oh, you want me to say what I would like?
She wanted my opinion.
It wasn’t just me acting or me saying these memorized lines.
She wanted my contribution, which felt so powerful.
And so that was an aspect of it.
I was like, It doesn’t really make sense.
How about if I end up hanging upside down?
And then Leslye was like, Oh yeah, I think that works.
So then I unfortunately had to hang upside down for episode 4.
I remember in rehearsal I would be like, Do I have to say this line?
I’m just like, Oh, okay.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
