Ahead of the premiere of the new Star Wars series The Acolyte on Thursday evening, actress Dafne Keen already knew the game she wanted to play. Having grown up something of a Star Wars fan herself, she knew the Easter eggs fans would recognize anywhere—and decided to weave a handful into her red carpet look. Keen and stylist Cher Coulter pulled a taupe-hued Acne Studios gown inspired by the sand dunes of Tatooine, accented with “industrial-looking” silver jewelry that Keen likened to the “machinery of a spaceship.” But her hairstyle would serve as the crown jewel: Keen selected an intricate braid worn by Natalie Portman’s Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, during the scene when Padmé first meets a young Anakin Skywalker. “It felt like a really nice homage to Padmé, who was character that I grew up with and I loved,” Keen says.
On the carpet last night, Keen was practically unrecognizable, at least when compared to her character in The Acolyte. As the half-alien Jecki Lon—Jedi Padawan to Lee Jung-jae’s Sol during the peak of the High Republic, when the Jedi are practically untouchable—Keen is perpetually coated in white paint and dotted with tiny horns. But even fans familiar with her older work—particularly her star-making turn as young mutant X-23 in the 2017 X-Men film Logan—saw a transformed Keen at the premiere. Having began her acting career at 9 years old, the now 19-year-old Keen feels the change herself. “I’m really excited for people to get to know me a bit better,” she says. “I’m very private about my life, and I still want to remain that way, but there’s so much about me that I haven’t been able to share because I was so young. I was a child, and now I’m free to express myself a bit more.”
Ahead, the actress offers a sneak peek at what to expect in The Acolyte—which premieres on Disney+ on June 4—and how her red carpet style has evolved.
Do you feel, after these 10 years, any desire to step out or step away from the spotlight that’s been put on you, now that you’ve joined multiple massive cinematic universes? Or do you feel you’re just getting started?
I think, for me, the spotlight is kind of the side effect to what I love. If I could act without having to have a public persona, that would be really cool, but that’s just not how the world works. I like to do projects that I feel passionate about, and I feel very passionate about this, and I felt very passionate about Logan, and I felt very passionate about His Dark Materials. I’m happy to keep acting. I’m excited to do more action films. I did my first horror film at the beginning of the year, and that was really fun. I’m excited to maybe try comedy. I’m excited to do really gritty dramas. I’m just excited to sink my teeth into as many different characters as possible. I feel like I’m just getting started, and I want to, maybe, move into the world of directing and writing. Film is the love of my life.
What about The Acolyte? You said that this is a project you felt passionate about, but why this particular type of Star Wars story and this particular character?
I think I saw a lot of me within [Jecki Lon]—in her kind of perfectionism, and how hard she is on herself. Also, she was such a different character from Lyra and Laura and Anna; it was really fun to play this much more constrained, put-together person. That was a challenge for me because I’m not used to that. I’m used to playing very wild, kind of feral characters.
You’re almost unrecognizable in this half-alien makeup. How did that impact not only your performance, but your own sense of yourself in this role?
It completely changed how I played her. When I read [the script], Jecki was going to be a very different character. And then as soon as I found myself in the makeup and the costume, she became something completely different. She was originally going to be much harsher and colder and distant, and then as soon as I found myself in her skin, she was much softer, more sensitive, and just curious and excited about everything. The makeup was transformative—inside, as well as outside. It completely transformed my way of working, in a way.
What can you tell me about the experience of playing a Jedi Padawan in an era where the Jedi are thriving? So much of what we’ve seen in the other films and shows either takes place after the fall of the Jedi, or leading up to their demise.
It was really fun creatively because we had freedom—obviously within what we knew from the literature that there is about the High Republic. It was really freeing to have that space to investigate and create something new and fresh that the fans wanted. We were also excited to be investigating a time when the Jedi are at the height of their power, and they’re almost naive to the dangers that are around them because they’re so used to not having any dangers. It was fun to play a character like that. For example, from the physical sense: [Jecki] is completely fight-trained, but she’s not really alert, because why would she need to be alert?
How has your approach to red carpet fashion evolved over the past 10 years, and especially as you’ve aged into adulthood?
My relationships to red carpets have been very different as I’ve grown up. My first red carpet, I had a horrible time. I was 9, and I was terrified; it was really daunting. No one wants to dress you as a kid because it’s boring. No brands lend to kids. There are no brands with kids clothes, so every stylist was always like, “No,” which was funny. When I was much younger, my mom and I would go to shops, and we’d try something on and buy it and not take the tag off, and then we’d return it the next day. My first red carpet, that’s what we did, which is not ethically right, but... [Laughs.]
I was a very weird kid. [One of my] favorite films was Some Like It Hot. I was obsessed with Cyd Charisse’s costume in Singing in the Rain in the dream sequence. I love Katharine Hepburn’s suits. Those were my fashion icons, and as a 9-year-old, no one’s going to dress you like that. I was really annoyed that the clothes I wanted to be wearing I couldn’t wear yet and there were no really cool clothes for me.
I was much more of a tomboy out of the fact that I couldn’t be wearing those dresses yet. I found it quite difficult to find my traditional femininity, in a way, which I think, as I’ve grown up, I’ve found much more.
I’m a performer, so, for me, the red carpet is also a form of performance. The moment I discovered that I enjoyed [red carpets] was when I was like, “Oh, this is a part of it. This is a part of the performance. I’m selling the film now, and the way I’m going to sell the film is I’m going to dress up.” It’s really fun to have a stylist who understands that I want to be involved in it. I don’t just want to be a little doll that you dress up.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Styling by Cher Coulter; hair by Johnnie Sapong; make up by Yasmin Istanbouli.
Lauren Puckett-Pope
Culture Writer
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture writer at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE.
