For a character that’s been a part of the Star Wars story for almost 40 years, and with such a key speech to deliver not only to the warriors of the Alliance but to the audiences of 1983, Mon Mothma is one of the most mysterious characters in the saga. Appearances in Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One, Star Wars Rebels and her place in Legends gave some depth to her character, but it’s Andor which will really lift the lid on the senator and her plans for a unified rebellion. Not only that, but there’s plenty of dramatic meat on the bone for actress Genevieve O’Rielly and writer Tony Gilroy to get their teeth into.
“She’s this figurehead of liberal democracy that will fail, and ultimately, she’ll go to the Rebel Alliance. We stick to the timeline and the major events. But as you can see, we’re saying, ‘You don’t really know what’s going on with her,’” Gilroy says. “Nobody has really known what’s going on with her. She’s had a much harder time than we knew.”
The revelations about Mothma are more intimate than Star Wars storytelling usually gets. Andor shows her not only struggling to hold together the nascent rebellion, but it also bears witness to her tumultuous and combative marriage to a husband named Perrin (Alastair Mackenzie). Fans have seen Han and Leia trade barbs, but they’ve never seen anything like these two.
“Just wait, just wait,” Gilroy says. “Their marriage is as complex as any marriage I’ve ever written in any show I’ve ever done, or any movie I’ve ever written. Their relationship, how they negotiate it, where it ends up, the shifting power dynamics of it…It’s as complicated as anything I’ve ever worked on.”
Part of the problem is that Mothma’s husband, Perrin, is all too comfortable living in the luxury of the Empire. “She’s the boss. She’s the senator. And he’s an epicurean,” Gilroy says. “He just wants to live life, man. ‘Why can’t we have fun? Why does everything have to be boring? Why we have to do all this political s***? Who cares about this revolution? The revolution’s a pain in the ass, man. Let’s have fun!’”
It would be a spoiler to reveal how that relationship plays out, but Gilroy and O’Reilly are willing to describe the origin of this mismatched couple in advance. “They were married at 16. That is a very big thing in Chandrila,” Gilroy says. “She has a daughter. It was somewhat of an arranged marriage.”
- Wong, Alyssa (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 120 Pages - 12/27/2022 (Publication Date) - Licensed Publishing (Publisher)
