The creator of The Acolyte, the upcoming Star Wars series on Disney+, has revealed how Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae was "the guy" for the leading role in the new show.
Lee, who is a Screen Actors Guild/Emmy winner and Golden Globe nominee, has been a major veteran actor in his native land of South Korea for decades before he shot to international fame following Squid Game. Lee will be reprising his breakout role as Seong Gi-hun in the show's highly anticipated second season later this year.
But it wasn't Lee's established stardom that landed him the main role in Star Wars: The Acolyte, according to the show's creator, Leslye Headland.
"I had written this character, and I had no idea who to cast, and I had no idea who was going to be able to play all of these different levels," Headland told IGN on Tuesday as the show's official trailer was released.
She said that she'd thought about Squid Game and "I was, like, 'That's the guy, that's him. I don't know how I get in touch with this person, I don't know if they want to perform in English.'
"To me, it became so clearly [Lee]'s part, as opposed to [casting him for] the fact he's a Korean movie star," she said.
Lee makes his Hollywood debut in the latest installment in the Star Wars franchise as "a respected Jedi Master" called Sol.
The new series, set at the end of the High Republic era before the events in the main Star Wars films, will feature "an investigation into a shocking crime spree" pitting Sol against "a dangerous warrior from his past," played by Amandla Stenberg (from The Hunger Games), according to the show's Disney+ synopsis.
"As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems," Disney+ says.
The show's trailer begins with Sol addressing a group of Jedi "younglings." He tells them, "Close your eyes. Your eyes can deceive you. We must not trust them."
Sol is later shown in a fight scene with Mae, the warrior played by Stenberg, and seen standing alongside Indara, another Jedi Master, played by Carrie-Anne Moss (from The Matrix film series). He's later seen wielding a light saber in an epic battle scene before the trailer ends.
While working with Lee, Headland said, she realized "this is the best actor I've ever worked with," she told IGN. "Watching him perform in English for the first time, and tracking the emotional beats, doing so much of his own action."
While the show had "an amazing stunt team that did the stunts," she said Lee "did so much of his own action, which I had no idea he could do."
The upcoming Star Wars series will be one of Lee's latest new projects before fans get to see him in Squid Game Season 2 later this year.
He has signed with Creative Artists Agency, which also represents heavyweights like Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt, among others, and Star Wars may be just the beginning of Lee's Hollywood career.
Asked which Hollywood director and actor he'd most like to work with, Lee told Newsweek in August 2022: "There are too many I can name, but I'd love to work with director Todd Phillips and actor Joaquin Phoenix one day."
Star Wars: The Acolyte will be available for streaming on Disney+ on June 4.
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