In an interview with the The Hollywood Reporter magazine, The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland discussed how she’s proud to inspire LGBTQ fans, but says the story is being read in unintended ways.
Headland is elated and relieved by the early response to her mystery-thriller series that’s set 100 years before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, chronicling the emergence of the Dark Side during the High Republic era of Jedi-controlled peace. It’s been well received by critics, and the two-episode June 4 premiere is also Disney+’s strongest debut in 2024, with 11.1 million viewers over five days.
However, as someone who generally pushes back on the notion that queer artists are capable of creating only queer or queer-coded art, Headland remains perplexed by a recent viral moment from her show’s L.A. junket. A journalist posited to her and Stenberg that The Acolyte is “arguably the gayest Star Wars by a considerable margin.” The writer-director and her star had fun with the line of inquiry, but now that the exchange has generated a bevy of responses, the question of what makes a piece of mass entertainment “gay” is one this queer artist continues to ponder in earnest. “I was surprised by the question. Amandla and I just burst out laughing because that’s our knee-jerk reaction to being asked that, but to be honest, I don’t know what the term ‘gay’ means in that sense,” admits Headland, adding, “I don’t believe that I’ve created queer, with a capital Q, content.”
Perhaps the most queer-adjacent story point is that the 24-year-old Aniseya twins were born to two moms, Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Mother Koril (Margarita Levieva), whom plenty of internet commentators are calling a lesbian couple. The two led an exiled coven of witches on the planet of Brendok, where they practiced their own interpretation of the Force, known as the Thread.
It’s eventually implied, not confirmed, that Aniseya used her brand of Force powers to impregnate Koril with the twins, but for Headland, their relationship is more circumstantial. “They’re in a matriarchal society. As a gay woman, I knew it would read that their sexuality is queer, but there also aren’t any men in their community,” she explains. “So a closeness between the two of them would be natural. It seemed plot-driven.” She adds: “I would say it’s really reductive to call them lesbians. I think it means you’re not really paying attention to this story.”
Headland stresses that she is by no means running from any material that might speak to queer audience members. “I’m proud of being a gay woman who’s accomplished this feat, and certainly, if my content is called queer, I don’t want to disown whatever queerness is in the show. I would be proud to create something that inspired queer people,” states Headland.
Like most creatives, Headland welcomes constructive criticism of her series. But ever since Star Wars: The Force Awakens refocused the episodic film franchise on Daisy Ridley’s female Jedi, Rey, scrutinizing Star Wars for any hint of progressivism has become an online cottage industry for combative fans who yearn for the kind of representation that was pro forma in the 1970s and ’80s. Inevitably, this contingent of the audience has eagerly put The Acolyte in the crosshairs and made a meal out of the aforementioned junket interaction. “Honestly, I feel sad that people would think that if something were gay, that that would be bad,” Headland says. “It makes me feel sad that a bunch of people on the internet would somehow dismantle what I consider to be the most important piece of art that I’ve ever made.”
Headland knows that, in culturally divisive times, polarization comes with the territory, but having the chance to play in the Star Wars sandbox is worth it: “It’s been beyond my wildest dreams.”
Stream the first four episodes of The Acolyte on Disney+ now.
