If Emperor Palpatine rising from the dead can be so simply “explained” by Poe Dameron declaring, “Somehow, Palpatine returned,” then no one’s really dead in Star Wars. That’s the recent sentiment from Rey and Kylo Ren fans ever since Adam Driver revealed there was a Hunt for Ben Solo movie in the works with Steven Soderbergh writing and directing that was suddenly scrapped by Disney. The Acolyte is another Star Wars title with a lot of women fans, thanks to the charged performances from Manny Jacinto (Qimir) and Amandla Stenberg (Osha), and it, too, was canceled last year despite its popularity (the news dropped on Jacinto’s birthday, no less).
As fans rally to push Disney to revive Ben Solo — and after The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland revealed some major details about Qimir’s connection to Kylo Ren in The Art of the Star Wars: The Acolyte book — Jacinto tells TV Insider he’s “always ready” to come back to Qimir, should the force reawaken this desire, adding, “That was a role of a lifetime.”
Star Wars: The Acolyte premiered in 2024 on Disney+. The fantasy drama is a prequel series set in the High Republic era, about a hundred years before The Phantom Menace and long before the events of the Skywalker Saga, which The Rise of Skywalker concluded. Stenberg played twin sisters Mae and Osha in Acolyte. When former Padawan Mae reunites with her Jedi Master, Sol (Lee Jung-jae), to investigate a series of crimes, she discovers the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.
The backstory with her twin, who she once believed to be dead, is revealed throughout the season; meanwhile, we learn that Osha’s life led her down a darker path. She connects with the Stranger (Jacinto), who’s revealed to be the powerful Sith, Qimir. The season ended with Osha killing Sol and becoming a Sith herself, joining Qimir, with whom a romantic connection was brewing. Fans were excited to see more “Oshamir” in a potential second season. When it was canceled, there was pushback on social media, in part because of Jacinto’s impressive villain turn.
Jacinto came to TV Insider’s office to discuss the upcoming streaming debut of Freakier Friday on November 11 on Disney+. We asked if he’s seen what Driver and Soderbergh shared about the scrapped Ben Solo movie, plus the fan outcry in response (fans have gone so far as to start a billboard campaign and have a “Save the Hunt for Ben Solo” ad flown by plane over Disney Studios in California), and if that makes him feel like somehow, The Acolyte could return.
“I am always ready, and I would love to run it back if they’d have me,” Jacinto responds. “That was a role of a lifetime, and I’m incredibly proud of what we did in The Acolyte and with Oshamir, with that whole relationship.”
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“I feel like with a lot of the franchises that we currently have, it’s missing the romance,” Jacinto shares. “It’s missing a lot of love and relationships. We have the big fight scenes and the origin stories of these heroes and whatnot, but they don’t really have a relationship with other people. It’s such a weird thing. And that’s why I loved the Qimir and Osha relationship, because we were taking it back to having a relationship in this big world. I think we just need more of that. I think that’s what made the characters and the story more compelling as opposed to just having big fight sequences, which I loved.”
We say that this is the franchise that gave us one of film’s most iconic couples, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). In short, Star Wars has always had romance.
“It does, and it should have more,” Jacinto replies.
The Good Place alum reveals what conversations were had about continuing Qimir and Osha’s story in Season 2.
“I did run into an article about, and I think Leslye cleared things up a little bit, that a possible path was that Qimir was one of the first Knights of Ren, so that was a possibility to explore,” Jacinto says.
Kylo Ren was the leader of the Knights of Ren, an elite group of dark side warriors, in The Force Awakens trilogy. In The Art of Star Wars, Headland reveals that Qimir was the first Knight of Ren, which circumvents the Sith Rule of Two. This answers a burning question about The Acolyte finale and how Qimir was able to take on a new apprentice when the show had already started to introduce Darth Plagueis.
“There were other things that we were kind of exploring as well in a possible Season 2 that, of course, didn’t come to fruition,” Jacinto goes on. “But I would’ve loved to explore, obviously, the relationship with Osha more, but also Qimir’s relationship to Vernestra [Rwoh] more, and see what that dynamic was like.”
Vernestra (Rebecca Henderson) was Qimir’s Jedi Master before he turned to the dark side.
“I think there would’ve been maybe more of a Master-Padawan relationship with the both of them, but who knows? I don’t know if we’ll ever see it.”
When we say that if “Somehow, Palpatine returned” is enough to bring a character back from the dead with no further explanation, then Acolyte can certainly return, too, Jacinto laughs and says, “Yeah, fingers crossed. We’ll see.”
Star Wars: The Acolyte, Available Now, Disney+
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