While far from the most popular character of Andor season one, viewers of the opening chapter of season two will have noticed a change in Perrin Fertha, the hedonistic husband of Chandrilan senator Mon Mothma, to the degree that showrunner Tony Gilroy believes viewers may well do a 180 on their opinions of the formerly unpopular spouse.
RS: Mon Mothma’s hedonistic husband, Perrin, seemed a bit more rounded out this season. I felt some sympathy for his point of view this time.
TG: Totally. It peeved me the way that people in chat rooms just hated him and talked about how horrible he was. And I thought, that’s not what I envisioned. And I told [actor Alastair Mackenzie, who plays Perrin] that we would do some things to complicate it. Perrin is clearly no saint, and he’s certainly no rebel. But he has a very legitimate point of view and one that I think the show benefits from having.
Why shouldn’t somebody represent hedonism? Why shouldn’t somebody represent pleasure? Why shouldn’t somebody represent living in the moment? What the f*** is wrong with everybody else who’s running around doing all this other stuff? So, getting to do the wedding speech for him, we really worked hard on that. We really wanted that to be special. I’m very happy that’s in there.
RS: My guess is that in this moment in history, people will suddenly find themselves a lot more sympathetic to someone who just wants to live their life while all this crazy stuff is happening in the world.
TG: Yeah, I know. They’ll be going the other way now. We’ll have Perrin suddenly being everyone’s favorite. I also wanted to explain their marriage… If you get married at 15, and it’s two beautiful people and they’re rich and complicated and sophisticated, they’ve been through all kinds of things. Marriage is not a monolith. And the scene where they have the breakfast where he calls out Tay Kolma to her that next morning — I just love the way that Ariel Kleiman directed that scene. I think it’s so beautifully directed. I’m just in awe of the blocking and everything. It was nice on the page, but the two actors and Ari — that scene is just so much about a complicated marriage of people that have had all kinds of trouble, but yet no one else knows their story the way that they do. And the affection that comes from that and the comradeship that comes from that is something that the show benefits from.
