Just a few days after Star Wars: The Acolyte was cancelled, series star Amandla Stenberg is opening up about her reaction to the cancellation of the series. The Disney+ series, which is the first live-action show set in the Star Wars franchise's High Republic, was cancelled after one season following the "vitriol, prejudice, hatred and fateful language" that the cast received from people online since the show was announced and through its cancellation in mid-August.
The 25-year-old actress had dual roles in The Acolyte, as twins Mae and Osha, who ended up on opposite sides of The Force. Speaking on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday night, Stenberg talked about her experience with fans whose"rampage of vitriol" made her feel compelled to response to.
"Hello, I thought I would get on here, and just speak candidly. I hate doing this. I hate doing this, but I'm gonna do it. I honestly, I don't use social media very much anymore, and I'm so happy about that, but there are many folks out there that I want to acknowledge and I want to show appreciation and love and support for so that's why I'm hopping on here to talk about this, which is that our show, our Star Wars show, has been canceled. And I'm gonna say, I'm really transparent, and say that it's not a huge shock for me," Stenberg told her fans of the cancellation of the series after one season.
"Of course, I live in the bubble of my own reality, but for those who aren't aware, there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept, no one had even seen it. That's when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us. This really affected me when I first got the job, because it's just not something even though I anticipated it happening, it's not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it's happening to you."
She added: "On that topic, I just have to say it has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe. Even though, of course, I'm very sad about the show being canceled and I'm sad about us not being able to give people who are invested into it more, because…. I still just feel a lot of levity and joy around the fact that it that I got to experience it, and that people loved it, and that people were so responsive. I poured through a lot of different iterations of fan art and ship art and fan theories and things that were just so beautiful and filled my heart with joy. I just want to let those people know out there who supported us in that way and supported us vocally, despite and in the face of all of the vitriol that we received and the kind of the targeted attack, I would say we received by the alt-right, just that you are deeply loved and appreciated. It made this job all the worthwhile for me, and it made all of the challenging elements of it completely worthwhile for me. That plus my love of sci-fi and fantasy and being able to be a part of the legacy of something that I so deeply value, and something that means so much to me and I've looked up to for so long."
Stenberg also thanked Lucasfilm and The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland as well as everyone who watched the series before addressing the divisive reactions to the show:
I also just want to say thank you to Lucasfilm, for just being a f–king awesome team. They were so wonderful to work with. Everybody that I worked with in Lucasfilm, particularly Rayne Roberts, my producer. Who just had such vision and hope and such a mission for what we were going to continue bringing into the Star Wars universe. And it was a really beautiful, energizing, life changing experience to be a part of. And I have to thank Leslye Headland, who just, I just f–king love that b–ch. Excuse my French. She's just one of the best people in the world. I think she's so incredibly talented and unique and kind, and I'll love her forever, and I will love this experience with her forever. But at the end of the day, I also just want to thank everybody who watched it. Thank you for being so loving and supportive and excited and nerdy and awesome, and I'll continue to process this for a long time. Maybe the last thing I want to say on the subject is that we all exist in the context of all in which we live (laughs) But I'm serious. it's not lost on me how the way that these events have unfolded is also due to the hyper divisiveness of the time that we live in. That is driven, I would say at this point, by echo chambers of thought and algorithms that reinforce our biases. And I think that applies to everybody, but I think that in a particular sect of people, it manifests as a lot of fear for what is changing, a lot of hatred for anything that is other. And I would challenge us all and challenge myself to continue questioning what it is that I digest and think critically about what shapes it. And let's vote. Y'all, let's vote. Let's vote. I think that's all I have to say.
This is not the first time Stenberg addressed some of the backlash she faced with The Acolyte. Back in June, she released a music video responding to the critics. She said that she had spent 72 hours to come up with the choreography and lyrics to fire back at the internet trolls.
Lee Jung-jae's Reaction to The Acolyte's Cancellation
Another The Acolyte actor, Lee Jung-jae (spoilers ahead), talked about his character's demise in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. Lee, who's famous for playing the protagonist of Netflix's South Korean global hit Squid Game, said that he was surprised to see the show cancelled, even though his character, Sol, died in the season finale.
“As you know, my character had died already in the first season,” Lee told the outlet. “So I wouldn’t have appeared in the second season if there was one anyway. But, personally speaking, I really loved Leslye’s writing. I thought that she was a great writer and director who was very talented in the storytelling, as well as creating characters and creating meaningful structures within the story. So I was actually, personally, really looking forward to watching a season two with her at the helm.”
The actor added, “To hear the news, I was quite surprised personally as well.”
All episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are now streaming on Disney+.
