Amandla Stenberg on Star Wars: The Acolyte Cancellation - Full Instagram Story Video - August 2024

okay okay hello I um I thought I would get on here and just speak candidly I hate doing this I hate doing this but I'm going to do it um I honestly I don't use social media very much anymore um and I'm so happy about that um but there are many folks out there that I want to acknowledge and I want to show appreciation and love and support for so that's why I'm hopping on here to talk about this um which is that our show our Star Wars show has been cancelled and I'm going to say I'm going to be transparent and say that it's not a huge shock for me of course I live in the bubble of my own reality but for those who aren't aware there has been uh a rampage of vitrio that we have faced since the show was even announced when it was still just a concept when no one had even seen it uh and that's when we started experiencing a rampage of um I would say hyper conservative uh bigotry and and vital prejudiced hatred and hateful language towards us um and you know this really affected me when I first got the job um because it's just not something even though I anticipated it happening it's not something you can fully understand what it feels like until it's happening to you um however uh I feel like I've kind of moved through those feelings in various ways including being vocal about it myself um for me it just became a situation where there was no option but for me to uh honor my sense of ethics and my belief system and my value system while being in this very unique position uh it was kind of like I had this very unique experience of uh experiencing The World At Large which is of course hyper divisive right now um through the lens of this very very unique opportunity of being in Star Wars and I brought up a lot for me a lot um sociopolitical Dynamics a lot about my own value system how I respond that kind of hatred how I move through the World At Large and it it just became inarguable for me at a certain point that in order to uh continue to be myself I have to honor my value system by being vocal even within the context of working for Disney and and working um within the large I can't within the large massive IP that is Star Wars um on that topic I just have to say say it has been an incredible honor and dream for me to be in this universe um it still feels even though of course I'm very sad about the show being cancelled um and I'm sad about us not being able to give people who are invested into it more cuz they'll just feel a lot of levity and joy around the fact that it that I got to experience it um and that people loved it and that people were so responsive I poured through a lot of different iterations of fan art and ship art and fan theories and things that were just so beautiful and filled my heart with joy and I just want to let those people know out there who supported us and that way um and supported us vocally despite and in the face of all of the vitreal that we received and the kind of the targeted attack I would say we received by the altright um just that you were deeply loved and appreciated and it made this job all the worthwhile for me and it made all of the the challenging elements of it completely worthwhile for me um and so that plus my love of sci-fi and fantasy and being able to be a part of the legacy of something that I so um deeply um value and something that means so much to me and and I've looked up to for so long so I also just want to say thank you to lucasfilm um for just just being a [ __ ] awesome team they were so wonderful to work with and uh uh just everybody that I worked with in Lucas film particularly rain Roberts my producer was just uh had such like vision and hope and and uh and like such a mission for what we were going to continue bringing into the Sci-Fi universe and into the Star Wars universe and it was a really beautiful energizing life-changing experience to be a part of and and I have to thank Leslie Hedland who just I just [ __ ] love that [ __ ] she just excuse my French she's just one of the best people in the world I think she's so incredibly talented and unique and kind um and I I'll love her forever uh and and I will I love this experience with her forever um but at the end of the day I also just want to thank everybody who watched it thank you for being so loving and supportive and excited and nerdy and awesome and um I'll continue to process this for a long time but maybe the last thing I want to say on the subject is that we all exist in the context of all in which we live but I'm serious um it's not lost on me how the way that these events have unfolded is also due to uh the hyper divisiveness of the time that we live in that is driven I would say at this point by echo chamers of thought and and algorithms that reinforce our biases and I think that applies to everybody but I think that in a particular sect of people it manifests has a lot of fear for what is changing a lot of hatred for anything that is other and I would challenge us all and challenge myself to continue continue questioning what it is that I digest um and think critically about what shapes it and uh let's vote y'all let's vote let's vote uh I think that's all I have to say w this is 10 minutes long we'll see if I post this bye