‘The Acolyte’ Action Choreography Team Break Down Season Highlights, Including New Fighting Styles and a Wookiee Jedi

The fifth episode of The Acolyte brought the lightsaber action we were all craving for in a show set during the time with the most Jedi around we’ve had in live-action Star Wars yet. “Night” was the payoff to the cliffhanger from the previous episode, and it did not disappoint. The mastermind behind it, action director Christopher Clark Cowan, recently talked to StarWars.com about his work on the series.

 

Cowan is no stranger to the franchise, and had previously worked on another widely praised lightsaber-heavy sequence from the Disney era — the now-iconic Darth Vader scene in Rogue One. He, along with stunt coordinator Mark Ginther and assistant fight coordinator and stunt choreographer Lu Junchang, who also served as Manny Jacinto’s double, discussed key moments in the series so far. Take Jecki’s death scene, for instance; Cowan said:

 

“I came up with this shot reveal where Jecki is right in front and you just see these three sabers sort of poke holes through her. And we cut to Jecki like ‘What just happened?’ And she wipes and reveals Manny [Jacinto as the Stranger] for the first time in all his evil glory. Goosebumps, for sure, when that moment happens.”

 

 

From the very beginning, showrunner Leslye Headland wanted to incorporate martial arts into the fighting styles of the series (“My face lit up because my dream is to direct martial arts,” said Cowan about those interactions with her). She also wanted each character to have their own style, as Cowan explained:

 

“Mae’s fighting style is very direct, very erratic, very ‘I will cut somebody. She doesn’t care about the subtleties. She’s just going to run straight at her opponent and start throwing hands.”

 

The first confrontation in the series also had its own story points to cross off:

 

“Leslye definitely wanted to try something different with this opening fight in that it’s primarily hand-to-hand. That’s something that we really don’t get to see the Jedi or Force sensitives or Sith show off. Indara and Sol sort of have a similar approach in that they try to de-escalate the situation. They’re not just going to whip out their lightsabers.”

 

 

Carrie-Anne Moss was an absolute pro on the set, as Ginther explained:

 

“She worked her damnedest with the shorter period of time to learn the saber and the moves. She didn’t have a real long, extended, training period like we normally do, but she did really well with it.”

 

Another complicated stunt was the fight between Mae and Sol on Olega in the second episode. Said Ginther:

 

“When Mae is fighting Sol she does that high flip kick and it’s very difficult to land. We have to do that over and over again on the day and Chris [Cowan] will shoot it in a way that we know that we can make it as dangerous as possible so you feel that energy, but make it safe [in reality].”

 

Going into Episode 5, everybody was excited about the challenge, while also terrified by it. As Cowan put it:

 

“I really wanted that to come alive, especially when Jecki and Sol team up against him. I really wanted that to be the whole theme of what was there on camera the entire time. They do not let up, one after the other, one after the other, sometimes at the same time. Clearly, Master Sol is a beast with a lightsaber, and in my own personal headcanon, his Padawan is going to absorb all of that and more.”

 

 

 

Another important moment for Cowan was to show the full potential of who Jecki could have become had she survived the fight against the Stranger:

 

“If she were, for some reason, going to live past her prime, she would have been insane. So I really wanted that to come through.”

 

Episode 7 of The Acolyte brought another insane fight we didn’t think we’d see in live-action. During the third act, we got to see a Wookiee go nuts on the Jedi, and three of them combined hardly had the power to stop him. Cowan explained their approach:

 

“That was a fun one and also a tricky one to figure out. You have to take into account just the sheer strength of a Wookiee that would be behind his strikes with a saber. You can’t really just have a straight clash with a Wookiee because he’s going to knock you off balance. His saber is going to hit like a truck.”

 

 

And it was apparently all done by Joonas Suotamo, who didn’t have a double on set:

 

“We didn’t have a double for him, so Joonas came in and worked hard. That was all him. I think, when it comes down to it, a lot of people are going to look at the Wookiees a lot differently after this.”

 

Cowan wrapped it up with the following, intriguing tease:

 

“And as much fun as it was creating Wookiee Jedi-versus-Jedi action, we’re so hyped to show you what’s coming in episode eight. I can’t really say any more than that.”

 

The season 1 finale of The Acolyte will stream on Disney Plus on Tuesday, at 6pm PT / 9pm ET.