Manny Jacinto is having a long overdue moment! Most of us have a fondness for Manny thanks to his turn as Jason Mendoza in The Good Place, but now the rest of the world is here for his breakout moment. Star Wars fans know that he just finished kicking ass as Qimir/The Stranger in The Acolyte. Reviews may have been mixed on the series (I loved it, FYI), but everyone across the board is here for some more Qimir storyline. For the first time since Anakin Skywalker, we finally got an interesting, complex baddie that has it all: abs, arms, killer lightsaber skills, and a mysterious background.
Manny recently gave a big interview to GQ, where he talked about The Acolyte, his reduced role in Top Gun: Maverick, his Star Wars sex appeal, and more. The full article is pretty long, but it’s a good read, especially because he’s an honest one and we’ve not really had a lot of in-depth interviews from him before! Here are some highlights with more at the source.
Bringin’ the rizz back to Star Wars: What’s most striking about the Stranger is how undeniably, irrepressibly sexy he is. For the better part of five decades, Star Wars has been a franchise largely starved for sensuality. Han Solo, as Jacinto correctly alluded to, had plenty of rizz—but he hardly ever got to deploy it beyond the occasional chaste kiss and cheeky one-liner. The less that’s said about the anti-chemistry between Anakin and Padme in the prequels the better. And while Rey and Kylo Ren built up some genuine tension via Rian Johnson’s Bergman-and-Bogie-esque patter in The Last Jedi, it all fizzled out into nothing in that trilogy’s dud of a denouement The Rise of Skywalker.
By contrast, when the Stranger is first unmasked, in the midst of a brutal Jedi killing spree in episode five, the camera movements and moody lighting appear engineered to maximize Jacinto’s heartthrobbiness: His exposed arms are as taut and defined as the chassis of a Ferrari; his glistening cheekbones, bisected by a pair of meticulously swooping bangs, appear even sharper and more menacing than the lightsabers he’s gripping. An episode later, the show doubled down, having the Stranger and his abs bathe buck naked in a hot spring while flirting brazenly with Osha, one of the twin protagonists played by Amandla Stenberg. (Sample dialogue, after Osha picks up the Stranger’s lightsaber: “Feels good, doesn’t it? To hold one in your hand again?”)
Wet and oily are the secret sauces: The internet, as you might expect, has suffered a complete and utter knee-quivering meltdown in the Stranger’s wake. “I just started chewing on cement,” reads one tweet, posted alongside a horny fan edit of Stranger clips set to “Freak” by Doja Cat. “Manny Jacinto is about to lead me places I wouldn’t even go with a gun (back to Star Wars),” says another. Time went as far as to use Jacinto and The Acolyte as the impetus for a trend story: “The Rise of the Thirst Trap Villain.” Not even Disney+’s audio description is immune to Jacinto’s physical gifts.
“I mean, I think baby oil goes a long way,” Jacinto humbly deflects when I mention the widespread libidinousness he’s caused. “Baby oil and wet hair.”
A true sex symbol: “The Stranger flips classic gender tropes of hypersexualization,” Leslye Headland, The Acolyte’s creator and showrunner, tells me over email. “But a true sex symbol is someone who resonates emotionally with fans. Manny’s magnetism is rooted in his acting, not just his physique. His ability to access vulnerability, empathy, and longing is very compelling.”
On being a part of such a diverse cast: “I remember watching all of the movies with my parents growing up,” he said. “If I’m completely transparent with you, [Star Wars] was cool, it was something I admired, but almost from afar. Maybe because I didn’t see anybody like me in Star Wars, it was never something I aspired to be in, the way I’d watch a Jackie Chan film or something and go, ‘Oh, I want to do that.’ ” Getting to be a part of The Acolyte’s notably diverse cast, then, means the world to Jacinto. “I know there are plenty of Star Wars fans that look like you and me already, but it’s exciting that in this new iteration we have Lee Jung-Jae, myself, Amandla, Jodie Turner-Smith,” he said. “Even more people of color will be able to relate to and celebrate and see themselves in this entity that is Star Wars.”
Fans were upset about his reduced role in Top Gun “It’s flattering that there was a little bit of an outcry, but it wasn’t shocking to me,” Jacinto told me regarding his diminished role. “There was this sense of where the film was going [on set], like I can see them focusing the camera more on these [other] guys and not taking so much time on our scenes. Fortunately, it still was a great experience—you get to see this huge machine at work, see how Tom Cruise works, and you get to be a small part of this huge franchise.”
Tom Cruise is “writing stories for Tom Cruise:” Despite his typically cheery Canuck optimism, however, Jacinto admitted the disappointment lit a fire under him. “It kind of fuels you, because at the end of the day, Tom Cruise is writing stories for Tom Cruise,” he said. “It’s up to us—Asian Americans, people of color—to be that [for ourselves]. We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. If we want bigger stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves.”
I mean, when watching a dimly lit television show, wet hair and baby oil do go a long way. Or at least, I can confirm that in Manny’s case, even if he didn’t need the extra help with the sex appeal, it sure didn’t hurt. I really hope we get a second season of The Acolyte because there’s so much story left to tell! Or, at the very least, give us more Qimir with his shirt off, I mean give us a spinoff! And since it’s a Disney franchise now, why not both?! There’s plenty of baby oil to go around.
As for what he had to say about what happened to him with Top Gun: Maverick, that’s a really healthy attitude to have. I would not be that understanding and diplomatic, so I have to give him full credit for that. Of course, Tom Cruise is only going to look out for Tom Cruise, but that doesn’t mean it’s not infuriating and frustrating at the same time. On the bright side, at least he got paid? I can’t wait to see what else Manny has in store for us in the future, and to watch more stories that are written for him.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon, at Morley / Avalon, Getty and via Instagram