Amandla Stenberg not ‘shocked’ The Acolyte was cancelled after ‘rampage of bigotry’
Amandla Stenberg plays twin sisters Osha and Mae in Star Wars: The Acolyte. (YouTube/Star Wars/Disney+)
The Acolyte star Amandla Stenberg “wasn’t shocked” that the Star Wars spin-off was cancelled in the wake of the backlash the series faced.
The Disney+ show, in which Stenberg played twins Osha and Mae, acolytes in training on opposite sides of the Force, was cancelled after just one season, despite breaking streaming records.
Set 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, the show was review-bombed and branded “woke” by conservatives – in other words, for having a cast of diverse actors and storylines including lesbian space witches.
“I’m gonna be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me. For those who aren’t aware, there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was announced,” Stenberg said in a lengthy Instagram post on Wednesday (28 August).
“It became inarguable for me at a certain point that in order to continue to be myself, I would have to honour my value system by being vocal, even within the context of working for Disney and within Star Wars.“
Although Stenberg, who has also appeared in The Hunger Games franchise, maintained that she was unbothered by accusation of woke, she went on to say that the vitriol she experienced was intense.
“We started experiencing a rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudiced hatred, and hateful language towards us,” she said. “This really affected me when I first got the job because even though I anticipated it happening, it’s not something you can fully understand until it happens to you.
“For me, it became a situation where there was no option but for me to honour my sense of ethics and belief system.”
The Dear Evan Hansen star thanked “those people who supported us vocally, despite, and in the face of, all the targeted attacks we received [from] the alt right,” which “made this job all the more worthwhile for me”.
She also thanked Star Wars creators Lucasfilm for being a “f**king awesome team”.
The Acolyte is available to stream on Disney+.
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