The actor behind the series’ most mysterious character talks about training his body and working on his craft to bring the multiple personae to life.
The Stranger sometimes visited Manny Jacinto in his dreams.
It was during production and the actor —who made his Star Wars debut in The Acolyte’s two-episode premiere as Qimir, the smuggler/potion maker and accessory to Amandla Stenberg’s assassin Mae — was preparing for the role in the seclusion of the small town of Windsor, about 40 minutes outside London. “I was by myself and it was an advantage because I felt the isolation,” Jacinto tells StarWars.com. “I was able to just really think about the characters 24/7 to the point where I'd have dreams — but also nightmares — about them.”
Spoiler warning: This article discusses story details from The Acolyte episode 5, “Night.”
Taking inspiration from an eclectic blend of Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise mixed with Toshiro Mifune’s Kikushiyo in Seven Samurai, Jacinto would practice walking like Qimir at the local grocery store and even speak in character to the cashier at the checkout. Then, just like in the series, he would make the switch, honing into the stillness of the Stranger. Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master was a masterclass in that specific kind of duality. “You think he's just a drunk, but he's actually a kung fu badass,” Jacinto says. “The Stranger was just a bit more grounded. Isolation was a good and a bad thing, but it was very beneficial in trying to mold the characters. It was just chaos and stillness and balancing those within those two [personae].”
Recently, Jacinto sat down to talk about the duality of his part in The Acolyte, working with creator and showrunner Leslye Headland, and readjusting to his regular life.
Human or alien or robot
Jacinto, whose breakout role as Jason Mendoza on The Good Place couldn’t be less like his latest character, was intrigued by the Stranger from the start. “Honestly, I joke that I don't know if I'd be able to top this role ever, and maybe I should retire,” he says. “It is a dream role for any actor to be able to tackle because of the complexities of [the Stranger and his alias]. You get to just show a spectrum of different personality traits and characteristics. It was such a fulfilling thing to do.
“When we first met, Leslye and I talked about how you approach a lower status character and then convert him into this complete badass. That was the problem from the jump,” he adds. “What appealed to me about The Acolyte, this whole story and the character of Qimir and his shift into what we call the Stranger, is that everything was a huge challenge. And I just love a good challenge. I love being able to build characters that we've never seen before from the ground up.”
Jacinto has a background in dance and a deep appreciation for the physicality of performance, which made him eager to do as many of his own stunts as possible. Along with action designer Christopher Clark Cowan and fight choreographer Lu Junchang, who also served as Jacinto’s double at times, the team trained Jacinto in the foundations of stunt work then looked to previous Star Wars fight choreography to find ways to differentiate the Stranger’s style in battle. “We wanted the Stranger to move very differently from what you've seen in the prequels and in the original trilogy. If you compare them, you'll notice that it’s very much an upright fencing type of structure to the fighting,” Jacinto says. “Whereas with the Stranger, we really wanted to be very fluid. We wanted him to move like something we've never seen before: quick, yet powerful, but also sneaky. And in order to have all these things, you had to be strong, but also flexible and dynamic.”
Costume designer Jennifer Bryan and creature department supervisor Neal Scanlan’s teams crafted the costume and helmet, respectively. “In terms of the costume itself, Jennifer Bryan created this beautiful silhouette for the Stranger,” Jacinto says. “When it moved, it was very much just like water. It added to the mystery of the Stranger. You didn't know what he was, if he was human or alien or if he was a robot.”
Jacinto is hoping to get a replica of the mask for his own collection. On set, three variations of the piece were used for different sequences. “It's aesthetically beautiful, but it is the worst utility-wise. You can't see anything. You can't breathe in it.” To help offset those limitations, Jacinto trained with a cloth or paper mask from the beginning, working on breathing exercises to avoid feeling sick from the exertion. “I kept that in mind, just to get used to not being able to breathe,” he says. “Then I would wear this apparatus, like construction-meets-sound-engineer, and I would practice with that.”
Elements of horror
Some of the mystery and intrigue came from Headland’s creative direction. “I love Leslye so much,” Jacinto says. “She had a very specific need to approach the Stranger in almost a horror-style type of way. We talked a lot about the concept of the uncanny, when you watch a horror movie and it's not an explicit jump scare, but you see something and it's a little off. Maybe somebody has a twitch in their eye or a misstep. We really honed in on that.”
From his first introduction, just out of focus and slowly descending to the forest floor like an apparition, the Stranger is unlike anything we’ve seen before. And that’s only part of the reason he’s Headland’s favorite character in the series.
“Manny is out of control in the show,” Headland says. Beyond her evident awe for the performance, there’s something familiar in the Stranger. “In episode five he says something that I would say is a good summation of how I feel moving through the world, which is that all he wants is freedom,” Headland says. For the filmmaker, that means freedom of expression.
And the Stranger’s experience may resonate for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t belong. “When he says, ‘the Jedi say I can't exist,’ there is something about my experience in the world that has felt that way to me,” Headland adds. “That sometimes walking through life, with its highs and lows, can feel like you're not allowed to be yourself, that you have to follow certain rules of society, or the expectation that you might feel on your shoulders. To be free of that is something I find really enticing.”
Jacinto teases that there’s more to the Stranger to unpack as the series continues. “How does one get seduced by the dark side?” he asks. “I was very intrigued by that, when [Headland] mentioned that, it's such an interesting concept. Because with seduction, you have empathy and vulnerability. And that was really appealing to me because we never really see that in the Sith or in the dark side. It was a lot to explore.”
Jacinto is still adjusting to his newfound fame in the Star Wars galaxy as well as emerging from the better part of a year of inhabiting the role. “It’s so beautiful when other people appreciate the work that we did because we are just so proud. But it's just like a cherry on top to have the love come through,” Jacinto says.
“It was this eight-month process of just being isolated and thinking about this character constantly and doing stunts and working out and making sure that I got this character down. And when I got back to the real world, I joked that it's weird being a civilian again. It's weird just being a normal person whereas before I truly felt like I was some sort of darker entity or some sort of smuggler or isolated Sith, you know? But I think I came out of it. Maybe. We'll see,” he says with a smile. “Give me some more time.”
