‘The Acolyte’s Amandla Stenberg talks Oshamir, the violin, and that game-changing finale

Amandla Stenberg pulls off the ultimate switcheroo in The Acolyte.

Throughout The Acolyte‘s first season, Stenberg’s dual performance as twins Mae and Osha Aniseya walked the line between the Dark Side and the Light. Osha begins the season as a supporter of the Jedi, even though her intense emotions and grief over losing her family led her to be kicked out of the Order. Her sister Mae, on the other hand, starts off as a devotee to a Sith master, hellbent on gaining justice on the Jedi.

But by the end of The Acolyte‘s showstopping finale, the twins have swapped places. Osha has turned to the Dark Side, killing Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) and becoming the Stranger’s (Manny Jacinto) acolyte. In support of her sister’s new path, Mae agrees to have her memories wiped, only to wind up in service to the Jedi.

It’s a game-changing finale, one that never loses sight of the relationships that drives it. So much of that is owed to Stenberg, who grounds the series in the connection between Osha and Mae. In an interview with Mashable, Stenberg discussed the catharsis the finale offers both twins, direction from showrunner Leslye Headland, and the already beloved ship between Osha and Qimir/the Stranger.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mashable: The finale of The Acolyte has so many moment that made me stop and go, “Wow, I can’t believe we’re actually seeing this.” So I’d love to know, when you were reading the script, what was the moment that stuck out to you as the showstopper, something you couldn’t wait to dive into?

Amandla Stenberg: I think it had to be Osha killing Sol. Leslye said to me, from the very beginning of the show, when we were in pre-production, “It’s very important for a woman in a narrative arc to kill her father.” [laughs] I was like, “What does that mean?”

At first I didn’t understand it. But then, as we continued speaking on it, and I went on Osha’s emotional journey with her, it made so much sense to me, because I think it’s the metaphorical father that she’s facing. It’s the things that she has been told that she is, the things she’s been told she’s not capable of, the suppression of self that she has partook in for most of her life, the emotional repression. All of that is coming to a head in a moment in which it’s able to release itself, and it takes the form of this tragedy. Knowing that’s where Osha was arriving was always such a rich thing for me to get into as I constructed her arc over the season. How does a person arrive to that point? It just became such a fun question for me to delve into.

Sol’s death is also the first moment we see Osha wield a lightsaber and the Force. What did it mean to you to finally take up these iconic elements of Star Wars in this very emotionally charged context?

Oh my God, it was so much fun. I freaked out. In the finale, I get to use a lightsaber and pilot spaceships. That was a dream come true for me; that was all I had wanted to do.

It really felt like a culmination of all the work that I’ve done to sort of graduate — kind of like how Osha is graduating into using a saber.

It was very gratifying, because I spent so many of those months training with knives or doing kung fu stunt choreography. So it really felt like a culmination of all the work that I’ve done to sort of graduate — kind of like how Osha is graduating into using a saber.

Amandla Stenberg in “The Acolyte.”
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.

I love how in that moment, Mae’s reaction to Osha killing Sol is more gentle and understanding than what we’ve seen from other Dark Side turns in Star Wars. What does her presence and her reaction mean to Osha as she starts down this new path?

I’m so happy to hear that. That was something that felt really important to me when approaching Mae’s role in those moments. Whenever you’re playing someone, you have to think of them as a person. And I always felt that Mae was driven by a profound sense of loyalty and emotionality and identification with her family and where she comes from. So I kind of had that in my back pocket throughout the season, even when it wasn’t revealed why she does the things that she does.

I think that Mae has this deep sense of gratification and release [when Osha kills Sol], both in gaining justice through Osha and also by allowing her sister to be the empowered one in their dynamic. She is used to, since childhood, controlling the power dynamic in their relationship, and she sort of relinquishes that control in that moment. There’s a lot of beauty in his death.

Then there’s that wonderful parting moment between Osha and Mae at the tree on Brendok. When it came to shooting, I’m curious to know which side of the scene you chose to perform first, and why.

I think I chose Mae first, because Mae’s perspective at that moment just felt very clear to me. I had wanted there to be the opportunity for there to be a softness in her. Both sisters, they, in this really satisfying way, get to have these parts of themselves that variables out of their control were preventing them from having until that moment. And I just had wanted to think about, “Okay, when Mae has experienced this retribution and this release, what parts of her do we get to see?” It felt very important to me that there was a softness and a protectiveness that she felt over her sister, because she’s always been motivated by her love for her family. That just felt very simple to me.

Both sisters…get to have these parts of themselves that variables out of their control were preventing them from having until that moment.

And then Osha is going through it. [laughs] Homegirl is in the trenches. I knew that Mae was going to be the supportive, guiding force in that moment, so I let that performance guide what Osha did.

Osha is going through such quick successions of change, while also being embodied. For me, it really felt like her embodiment was going to look like her allowing herself to feel things, which is just what the Dark Side is. It’s unchecked emotionality. Her journey is her having this stifled sense of self and being so afraid of her emotions, to then getting to the place where she’s allowed to feel and release.

Amandla Stenberg and Manny Jacinto in “The Acolyte.”
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Speaking of the Dark Side and emotions, I know a lot of viewers have latched onto the Oshamir ship. I know I was really excited to see that hand-hold play out. What are your thoughts on how things shake out for them here, and what the future might hold?

It’s been really cool to see how into Oshamir people are, because we didn’t necessarily know how people were going to respond to it.

Originally, the romantic arc was a much more significant part of the finale. We had this whole debate around, “Should they kiss? What should happen?” And we just had wanted to prioritize Osha’s choice of going to the Dark Side feeling more autonomous. That was something that Leslye always spoke to. She said, “I don’t want it to feel like Osha was manipulated into making this choice. I don’t want it to feel like it was something that was out of her control. I want it to feel like this was a choice that he made for herself, after she had all the information finally available to her.”

We just had wanted to prioritize Osha’s choice of going to the Dark Side feeling more autonomous.

So it became more important for us to prioritize the ideological alignment that’s happening between Osha and Qimir, and that Osha is finally acknowledged and seen in a deep way, allowed to be who she truly is by this other person. To me, that felt so much more romantically significant than any sort of physical intimacy could be.

There’s a little violin melody in that final moment, and I know that you play the violin. Were you approached to play that?

No, I wish I could say that was me; that would be so cool!

I got the chance to play a piece by John Williams on my violin, which was just a piece of video that we made as we were promoting the show. But I don’t think anyone was really aware I played violin up until that point. Then our music supervisor came up to me at the premiere and was like, “What the hell! I would have gotten you into the studio months ago!” So if we have the opportunity to go back, maybe that would be something we could explore.

All episodes of The Acolyte Season 1 are now streaming on Disney+.