It appears that we have a possible casting announcement for the lead character of the upcoming Star Wars: The Acolyte show. According to Variety the lead might be played by Amandla Stenberg.

Not much is known about the character other than it’s a Sith and the events of the show are taking place in the High Republic era. Because Lucasfilm is going to triple down on that as their books are arguably not doing so great.

Stenberg is known for playing Rue in the ‘Hunger Games’ and is a “non-binary” actor. The character in the Acolyte will be a female character which comes into play with the surprising comments made by showrunner Leslye Headland last year.

Many fans are rightfully concerned about this show given some of the talk around it, however I did find it interesting that Headland has made statements trying to premtively win back fans while also trying a new approach of not insulting fans and saying they are bad people if they don’t like it.

Comicbook.com shared some excerpts from an interview Headland did last year with  Fantastic Frankey that actually give me some hope. Of course it’s show not tell for many anymore so we shall see.

In regards to the worry fans have when something is pushed as “female-centric” especially since Hollywood keeps taking shows and films and rebooting them to gender swap the leads.

“Just because my show is technically, yes, ‘female-centric’, meaning it centers around a female protagonist, I don’t think that necessarily excludes men from that space. I relate to male characters all the time. I root for Mando. I root for Luke… An inclusive space means an inclusive space. But at the same time, I think that just because something has a female protagonist doesn’t necessarily mean it’s only for women.”

Then she discussed who the show was for. Recently, there has been a trend with pop culture and Hollywood that if you don’t universally love something you are a problematic individual and negative labels are assigned to dismiss your opinion.

Hopefully she sticks to this and Lucasfilm and their people also stick by this mindset.

“I kind of see, if Star Wars is a religion… I like to think of my show as a tent revival. You can come over if you want to. We’re going to be talking about some cool stuff. There’s going to be some things we haven’t discussed in the canon yet. There are going to be some characters you don’t know about. I would love you to join us. I would love you to be interested in it. If it’s not your thing — the cool thing about Star Wars right now is there’s so much you can align yourself with and get invested in, but if you don’t like it, that’s fine.”

Well that sounds promising, and I sincerely hope that Headland and Lucasfilm remember these statements as we move forward into ‘Star Wars.’ The fandom is pretty fractured and they are winning people back with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni shows. Fans aren’t against strong female characters. They are against the idea that for one character to be strong, other characters have to be weakened. They are against the idea that you have to erase the past to surpass it. They are tired of being told they have to love everything they are given or they’re bad people.

I have to say that I do have a bit more hope after reading her comments, but again, it’s a show me not tell me scenario.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!

Sources: Variety, Comicbook.com