The Acolyte's Amanda Stenberg has weighed in on the anime references for her character Mae.
Created by Russian Doll's Leslye Headland, The Acolyte follows Jedi master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) investigating a series of mysteries with his former Padawan learner Osha (Stenberg, who also plays Osha's sister Mae).
Speaking about Mae as being Osha's darker side, Stenberg discussed with Digital Spy the anime references behind the character.
"We definitely thought about all sorts of references and anime references too when we thought about character design," she said.
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"One of my favourite manga artists is Junji Ito and so I feel like he inspires me often even when I don't intend for it to happen," she continued.
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Stenberg also shared that Headland asked the crew to watch Kill Bill as a reference, with the actor taking assassin character Gogo Yubari as a model for Mae.
"We also reference Kill Bill often as one of our touchstones a lot, and Leslye showed Kill Bill to the whole crew when we started filming," she said. "I think Kill Bill has some hardcore anime references too, so it's probably like a trickle-down effect from that.
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"I thought about different assassin archetypes and one of my favourite ones was Gogo from that film.
"I loved how there's a femininity and girlishness to her while also being, well, a murderer. And I just thought that would be a fun way to play the role and a character that I was much more interested in seeing."
The Acolyte also stars Carrie-Anne Moss, Jodie Turner-Smith, Manny Jacinto, Charlie Barnett and Dafne Keen.
The Acolyte is streaming exclusively on Disney+ from June 4.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
Ali is Hearst UK's deputy social strategy director. He has been covering TV and movies for more than six years, all while wrangling Digital Spy's social media and video channels - for which he received a PPA 30 Under 30 award. He specializes in writing about anime, LGBTQ+ representation, science fiction, and comic book adaptations. Recently he's begun collecting Star Wars interviews like Infinity Stones and has spoken with The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy and the creative team behind The Bad Batch. Dave Filoni, you're next.
