Dafne Keen’s Acolyte Character Revealed

Television

This morning, Entertainment Weekly released an exclusive first look at Jecki Lon, Dafne Keen’s character in The Acolyte. Exclusive photos accompany an interview with Keen about her character’s design, personality, and more.

When asked about Jecki as a person, Keen offered this: 

“Well, I’m very excited that we know her name now, because it was secret for so long. And I’m very happy that I get to say that she’s an alien and that she’s a Padawan and that she’s a Jedi. She’s a mixed species — part Theelin, part human. She’s very cool and I have some very cool fights I do with the lightsaber. I really love her. She’s a great character and was really fun to play. I’m very excited that the trailer came out. I was buzzing for days.”

“I’d say she is a very dedicated Padawan. She’s definitely in awe of him (Master Sol) in a very kind of sweet way. She thinks the absolute world of him in a way that I think they have a very sweet relationship, but she’s much more aware of the authority difference than, for example, Obi-Wan and Anakin. She’s very much like, ‘No, he’s the master and I’m the Padawan and he’s perfect. And everything he says, I have to follow to the T.’”

When asked about the makeup process for Jecki, who is half human, half Theelin: 

“It was an hour and a half, two hours in the morning. So I’d usually get picked up at 3:30 AM, and then I’d go in, and the wonderful makeup artists Rob and Jeremy would just sit me in this chair and I’d get a bald cap on me that went from my eyebrows on my head up and would cover all my hair.

And then I had a piece of prosthetic that went over my eyebrows and my head to cover a bald surface, and then I’d get airbrushed white, and then I’d get freckles airbrushed on me, and I’d get horns stuck on me. And my wig and my hands had to be painted, my nails had to be painted — if any parts of my body were revealed, they had to be air brushed.”

When asked about creating her character with showrunner Leslye Headland: 

“We had a lot of conversations about Jecki, but ultimately she was very good at being like, ‘This is what I know for a fact, and then I’m going to give you space to think about what you want for your character.’ I’d always run everything past her because she has such a brilliant mind, and we spoke a lot. I was very stunt focused, so I spoke to her a lot about how she wanted the character to get reflected within her fight styles.

A lot of Jecki was created through her relationships with the people that surround her, so there was a lot of that of us talking about what her bonds with the other Jedi are. And I was completely sold from minute one with Leslye. We hopped on a Zoom call and she told me that it was a mystery, kind of thrillery series where you go finding out more and more about the show as the episodes go on. Her whole take on Star Wars felt like if a true fan was writing a Star Wars show, which felt really exciting, and also just a very fresh take. The way that Leslye wrote this mystery-thriller was so fascinating to me.”

Notably, Headland previously told Entertainment Weekly this: “We have to get Dafne, period. I just wanted to see X23 with a lightsaber in their hand. That has to happen.”

I still don’t know what to make of The Acolyte. I wish I could just be excited for a Star Wars show again, but they’ve burnt me too many times. The controversy surrounding Headland is a lot to ask people to ignore, too. I don’t know much about her actual role under Harvey Weinstein, so I have tried to avoid commenting on that. But it makes me uneasy, and I think many people feel the same. I’ll still watch The Acolyte because I watch all of these, and I hope it’s good. I feel it could go either way. I like that it’s a new story with (mostly) original characters like Jecki. I also like the inclusion of alien characters, something that much of Disney Star Wars has lacked. 

The pictures look fine. I imagine Keen’s costume will look better in motion with the show’s lighting in place, etc. Jecki sounds like an interesting enough character; I like the bit about respect for her master. At this point, I am most intrigued by the makeup and wig process. I recommend reading the whole interview here, which includes more details about working with Headland. 

What do you think about the interview, the photos, or anything about The Acolyte? Let us know in the comments! Credit to Entertainment Weekly for the interview excerpts and images of Jecki.