Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae to play lead in Star Wars spin-off series The Acolyte

Squid Game actor Lee Jung-jae has bagged the male lead role in the upcoming Star Wars spin-off series The Acolyte. The series is expected to start production in London later this year and Jung-jae’s role in the film has been kept under the wraps for now. Also Read: Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae debuts as director at Cannes Film Festival, says, ‘audience want more Korean content’

The Lucasfilm project is the brainchild of Leslye Headland, the co-creator of the hit Netflix show Russian Doll. As per Variety, he will feature opposite Amandla Steinberg and Queen & Slim star Jodie Turner-Smith in the series.

Leslye will serve as the director, writer, executive producer and showrunner of the series. The show is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. In the Star Wars universe, an acolyte can refer to individuals with force abilities who learn from a more experienced Sith Lord.

Jung-jae will also make his return for season two of Squid Game, which the series’ creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said should be expected in 2023 or 2024. The first season already led to Jung-jae becoming the first Asian actor win the Screen Actors Guild Award for a best male performer. The actor has appeared in K-dramas such as Chief of Staff and films Along With the Gods series, The Face Reader, and The Housemaid, is currently nominated in the lead actor category of the 2022 Primetime Emmy awards.

Last month it was announced that Jung-jae will reprise his role as a manic killer in Ray, a TV series based on the 2020 Korean action-horror film Deliver Us From Evil. In the film, Jung-jae’s character Ray, a Korean-Japanese ruffian whose brother was killed goes on a bloody vengeance rampage.