Star Wars may be known in recent years for using The Volume – a near-360-degree LED-backed soundstage that creates virtual green screen landscapes – but its latest series, The Acolyte, was intent on making things look and feel as real as possible.
To that end, The Acolyte crew built large practical sets, led by the philosophy of creator and showrunner Leslye Headland, who told GamesRadar+ that she "[didn’t] want to shoot on The Volume".
That involved going above and beyond – especially with the lush, green planets that have become a staple for adventures in a galaxy far, far away. What the likes of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford probably didn’t need, however, was directions to avoid getting lost on the way to filming.
"We have a forest that required an actual map to navigate, that was inside of a warehouse," Stenberg, who plays mysterious assassin Mae on the Disney Plus series, says.
Stenberg continues, "I remember being in the pre-production office, and I saw the map posted up on the wall and I said, ‘Oh, is that like a canon map of what our forest looks like?’ And they said, ‘No, no, that's a real map.’"
Charlie Barnett – who plays Jedi Knight Yord Fandar in The Acolyte – was similarly effusive about the scale of the production design.
"The entirety of the sets, they were whole worlds. They built [the planet Khofar] and it became a whole ecosystem. There were rivers running through it, plants [and animals] moved in, birds living in the ceiling," Barnett says.
"I was tripping on mushrooms," Padawan Jecki actor Dafne Keen added – before correcting herself: “By tripping on mushrooms, I mean literally!”
The Acolyte is streaming exclusively on Disney Plus from June 4 in the US and June 5 in the UK.
For more, check out The Acolyte release schedule – plus all the latest news on upcoming Star Wars movies and shows.
