THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH LEE JUNG JAE

SOUTH KOREAN STAR LEE JUNG JAE HAS made his Hollywood debut as the "first Asian Jedi Master" in a live-action "Star Wars" production, "The Acolyte." Directed and created exclusively for Disney+ by Leslye Headland ("Russian Doll") based on "Star Wars" by George Lucas, "The Acolyte" explores a brand-new story in a galaxy far, far away via an eight-episode series set in The High Republic.

- NATHALIE TOMADA

According to the showrunners, this is the era preceding "The Phantom Menace," where Jedi are at the height of their power, and this has been "seen in publishing and animation, but never before in live action." The show starts off with a shocking crime spree, launching an investigation that involves a respected and beloved Jedi mentor named Master Sol (Jung Jae) and his promising former padawan or apprentice Osha (Amandla Sternberg of "Hunger Games").

"I was writing the character of Sol when 'Squid Game' came out. I said, 'That's Sol," revealed showrunner Leslye in a video about the actor, who was already an icon in South Korea long before his internationally-acclaimed performance in the megahit series "Squid Game." When asked by The STAR what this role meant in his 31year acting career, Jung Jae said in an exclusive Zoom chat, "Personally, it is definitely an immense honor and joy as an actor to be able to participate in such a huge franchise. It's something that's even hard to imagine. And because I was thankfully given such a huge opportunity, I really wanted to do a great job.

"And so in order to do that, I put in a lot more hours and effort into the preparation process and thought long and hard about the character. And I also had a lot of discussions with the director and crew on set as to how to bring this character to life." The award-winning actor-director further shared that when he first stepped on the London set, he still felt "very nervous." "What was top of mind was I really didn't want to make a mistake on my first day," he told this paper. "And I also thought that I wanted to make as many different attempts as possible on the first day so that I wanted Leslye to look at the different sides of Sol I could bring to the table so that she may be able to point out what she really liked and wanted to bring to Sol.