Charlie Barnett Says His Big Shirtless Scene in ‘The Acolyte’ Premiere is About Humanizing Jedi: “It Was About the Steaming”

Disney+’s The Acolyte invites Star Wars fans to the High Republic era, a time period in which the Jedi were at their height…and steaming their robes? In The Acolyte Episode 1, Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) and his Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) walk in on Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) in a state of undress because he’s in the middle of steaming his uniform. It’s not only a surprisingly mundane chore for an illustrious Jedi to do, but it also provides Acolyte star and Russian Doll alum Charlie Barnett with a bit of a beefcake moment in the Star Wars galaxy.

So what gives? Why was The Acolyte the time and place for us to see a shirtless Jedi in action? After all, the only time we’ve ever seen, say, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), in such a state was when he was fully immersed in a bacta tank. More pertinently, at what point in production did The Acolyte‘s creator, writer and director Leslye Headland, let her pal Charlie Barnett know that he’d be breaking shirtless scene ground in her new Disney+ series?

When Decider caught up with The Acolyte stars Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, and Rebecca Henderson last month, Barnett tried to say he only learned he’d be shirtless on the first day of production. However, Henderson pointed out that Headland gave him the “off the record” heads up months earlier. Still, Barnett wasn’t initially thrilled.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Barnett said. “I was dreading [the scene] because I was like, ‘How much is the fandom gonna eat this apart? How much is this necessary? How much of it is just kind of “show”?'”

Barnett explained that his trust in Headland is what convinced him to strip down for Star Wars and that he now believes the moment reveals far more about his character than his toned abs.

“I’ve said this many, many times: I trust Leslye to the ends of the earth,” he said. “So I invested. I was one hundred percent to be there and it worked.“

“Because it’s one of those beautiful moments where it’s like Jedi are — I mean, I am a human — and Jedi do human things which means probably taking off their clothes and going to bed. But it’s even more specifically Yord, it wasn’t about the shirtless for me, it was about steaming. It was about preparing my day and being the best-presented Jedi I could possibly be.”

Barnett also told Decider that the scene taps into “the fun and the humor” that was in the original Star Wars movies. “The humor is an important part and people forget about it,” he said.

Speaking of humor, Barnett had quite the funny challenge when it came to preparing for Yord’s big shirtless scene.

“We were in England and I had a deep affinity for Scotch eggs,” Barnett said, referring to one of the UK’s most beloved deep fried snacks. “It’s not a ‘shirtless scene’ type of food. But I prepared. Stopped eating Scotch eggs.”

According to his co-star Dafne Keen, that wasn’t the only food Barnett avoided ahead of the scene.

“I have a really funny memory of after you did your scene,” Keen said. “There was like a basket where we had sweets and no one was touching the sweets because we were all like, ‘We’re training.’ And Charlie just came and, like, binged for like 10 minutes.”

“He was like, ‘Shirtless scene over. Ingest.’ Like it was crazy,” she said with a laugh.

The shirtless scene might be over for Charlie Barnett, but it will live forever in Star Wars as, what Barnett himself jokes, is “the sexiness.”