Disney+’s The Acolyte star Dafne Keen reveals how she almost missed her interview with showrunner Leslye Headland for the upcoming Star Wars series.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Keen detailed how she landed the role of Padawan Jecki Lon and the challenge of taping her audition which involved Lon “flying a spaceship, and it was basically me yelling coordinates.” Then Keen recalled the day she met with friends to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at a local cinema when Acolyte producer Colin Wilson called to break the unexpected news about meeting Headland.
“We organized this call, and I am the most chaotic human being ever,” Keen said. “It was summertime, and I was living in Spain at the time, and I was going to my friend’s pool because it’s boiling in Spain in the summertime. I was on this bus halfway to the countryside in the middle of nowhere in the mountains in Spain and I get this email from Leslye being like, ‘I’m on the call, you can hop on whenever.’”
“I was like: ‘Oh my God, I’ve completely lost track of time!’ I pressed the emergency exit button on the bus and walked for 10 minutes to a gas station. And then I went into the cafe at the gas station and propped my phone up on a Fanta. And then I picked up, and Leslye was like, ‘Where are you?’ I had a moment of: Do I lie to her and do I say, ‘I’ve gone to a cafe for better wifi.’ Or do I just fess up and say that I’m absolute chaos and I lost track of time? I fessed up and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry. I completely lost track of time. I am in the squelching heat in Spain in summer, and I was going to my friend’s house and I thought I’d make it in time and I didn’t. I’m so sorry.’”
In the end, Headland was humored by Keen’s honesty and gave her the role on the spot. “She literally laughed out loud and she was like, ‘I was thinking about giving you the part, and the fact that you just told me that shows me you’re the one. You could have lied to me.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but it just felt wrong,’” Keen added. “So I think I got cast because she thought it was hilarious that I did not lie to her about being complete and absolute chaos. And then we spoke about the show and I was completely in love with Leslye’s concept.”
What is The Acolyte about?
The official synopsis for The Acolyte reads: “An investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master against a dangerous warrior from his past,” the synopsis for the series reads. “As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems…”
Starring Dafne Keen, The Acolyte stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss.
The first two episodes of The Acolyte will be released on Disney+ on June 4.
