A welcome presence in any show or film, having Fiona Shaw be a part of the Star Wars galaxy in Andor is a real treat, and the award-winning actress talks to Kristin Baver about Maarva and why it she was so attracted to the role.
Shaw herself is between the ages she plays here, as a younger woman who stumbles upon Kassa on Kenari and the wise elder of Ferrix. Working with both Antonio Viña, who plays young Kassa, and Luna, Shaw shaped her character’s journey as an adoptive mother. “It was great to play those scenes in Kenari. Like all these relationships, you get a feeling that Maarva may have saved the boy, but the boy may also have saved Maarva. It’s given her purpose. It’s given her love. It’s given her someone to love and to worry about for the next 10 or 20 years while he grew up.”
The family drama drew Shaw into the story. “It’s full of all the complexity of family life. I think that’s a very enriching thing to live,” she says. And although she’s never shared the screen with a droid before, “I have no experience with droids, but I think most people who’ve got dogs have a similar relationship to their dogs,” she says with a chuckle. “Particularly an old dog, which is what this droid is. B2 is quite old. But, you know, the droid has got old with Maarva and I think that’s a lovely thing. She kept the same droid. You get a feeling that by then the droids are able to harness the information they got and therefore have a thing similar to affection. They have affection for their masters. They should be just computers, but actually they’re not. And they develop or disintegrate in the same way as humans and that’s what makes it charming, I think.”