The Acolyte: Meet Mae and dive deep into Amandla Stenberg's training journey

Amandla Stenberg is diving lightsaber-first into the galaxy far, far away, and she’s not just dipping her toes in - she’s doing a full-on swan dive.

Meet Mae, your new favorite Jedi (maybe?) In the upcoming Disney+ series The Acolyte, which launches us back into the Star Wars universe on this June 4th, Stenberg plays Mae, a former Jedi Padawan who’s smack in the middle of a galaxy-sized puzzle with dead Jedi popping up more frequently than droids at a tech sale. This all goes down about a century before Qui-Gon Jinn ever sniffed out young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace.

In an exclusive interview with EW for their Summer TV Preview, Stenberg goes into detail about her training and preparation for her kickass role.

The Acolyte isn’t just about lightsaber duels and dodging blaster fire - it's exploring a time when the Sith were more myth than menace, and the galaxy was a tad less chaotic. Stenberg explains she totally drawn to the idea of seeing the Star Wars universe in a period of eerie calm before the inevitable storm of the Empire.

Before stepping on set, Stenberg turned herself into a martial arts machine. She started from scratch with Wing Chun (that’s some serious old-school kung fu), moved on to punching and kicking, and ended up mastering epic fight sequences that would make even Obi-Wan Kenobi nod in approval. She trained with stunt legends like Cassie Jo Craig and Kellina Rutherford, and apparently, she was so pumped to get everything right that she became a lovable nightmare for the producers. In her grueling training days,

Amandla was under the wing of assistant fight coordinator Lu Junchang, her own real-life Yoda (minus the green skin and backward talk). She got so good at the combat sequences that by the end of the shoot, she was picking up new moves on the fly like some sort of Force prodigy.

"“I was such a pain in the ass for producers when I got there (...) I’m just a really analytical person, and I have to dive deep into everything and gather as many pieces of information as possible in order to not freak out, especially when it comes to taking on something like Star Wars. I remember saying something along the lines of: ‘Well, Hayden Christensen trained for this amount of weeks, and I’m only training for this amount of weeks!’ And they were like, ‘It’s going to be fine. You’re going to work with your master, and it’s going to be okay.’”
"

- Amandla Stenberg

She and I would definitely be best friends - lightsabers, the Force, and martial arts experience.

Side note: imagine walking into the Jedi Temple, where legends like Yoda and Mace Windu have strategized over countless threats to the galaxy. Unreal, right? Well, Amandla didn’t just walk in - she actually took a nap there. Talk about living the dream (literally).

As the premiere date zooms closer, even Amandla couldn’t help but geek out over the sets and the scope of what they’re creating. It's not just a new show - we're being blessed with a new slice of the Star Wars saga.