Lee Jung-jae was surprised The Acolyte was cancelled

Lee Jung-jae was “surprised” at the cancellation of The Acolyte, but he is remaining hopeful that we haven’t seen the last of the series.

The Acolyte was officially cancelled earlier this week, and although it wasn’t a huge shock to some, Lee Jung-jae was surprised that the Star Wars series actually got the axe. I should probably put a SPOILER warning here. Lee played Jedi Master Sol and was one of the highlights of the series. Although it was unlikely that his character would have returned for a second season, he was still hoping to see it.

“As you know, my character had died already in the first season,” Lee told Entertainment Weekly. “So I wouldn’t have appeared in the second season if there was one anyway. But personally speaking, I really loved Leslye’s writing. I thought that she was a great writer and director who was very talented in the storytelling, as well as creating characters and creating meaningful structures within the story. So I was actually personally really looking forward to watching a season 2 with her at the helm.“

Although Lee Jung-jae was “quite surprised” at the cancellation, he remains hopeful that we could see more of The Acolyte. “Honestly, I am hoping that maybe there could be changes in the future,” Lee said. “Because you never know what’s going to happen. So on a personal level, I really hope we could get to see further stories of Leslye’s second season.“

The Acolyte takes place 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace and follows Jedi Master who investigates a shocking crime spree which pits him against a dangerous warrior from his past. The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Jodie Turner-Smith, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Charlie Barnett, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Carrie-Anne Moss. You can check out a review from our own Alex Maidy right here.

Showrunner Leslye Headland had spoken about a potential second season just last month, confirming that she had heard “nothing” from Lucasfilm but didn’t necessarily see that as a bad thing at the time. “You have to take a break,” Headland said. “Especially after something like this. I don’t even know how many years my brain has been going, Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars, Acolyte, Acolyte, Acolyte — just constantly solving problems, constantly thinking about it. It is very weird to now be in a place where I don’t need to do that. I always say to budding writers, ‘The most important thing that you can do is sit around and do nothing. Because the second you start to manufacture a story, you’re going to get stressed out, and the story can’t start that way.’“