While needing to be cautious as the promotional tour continued for season two of Andor, Tony Gilroy looks back at the time – now removed from any requirement to sugarcoat anything – and gives a bit more detail on the balance that had to be found, so as not to divert attention away from the galactic action onscreen.
THR: You were quoted as saying, “Fascism doesn’t just take down the oppressed. It doesn’t just come for the people it’s trying to control. It inevitably destroys the people who have worked the hardest to build it.” And we’ve seen some notable examples of that recently.
TG: Yeah, it’s really interesting to watch the moment of realization where they’re suddenly cast off the island. Just read a little deeper into your Fascism for Dummies book, and go to the last chapter to see what’s going to happen.
THR: You said not too long ago that you couldn’t use the words fascism and genocide during early promotion of the show. And I do understand where the studio is coming from in not wanting the promotion of a show to be overshadowed by outrage media. James Gunn referred to Superman as an “immigrant,” and conservative media pounced on it to no end. Did you have a hard time talking around the show you made?
TG: We didn’t. Diego [Luna] and I had some early, super long-lead press, and we tiptoed out. We were like, “Oh my God, this is really electric.” So we stepped back, and we had a bunch of people that we were going to put on the road to sell the show. The actors have a broad spectrum of political ideas, and we didn’t want anybody to perjure themselves or violate their conscience. So we came up with a legit historical model, and it’s a version of what I’m telling you now. “We studied history to make the show, and we based it on historical models. We don’t have a crystal ball. There’s comps for everything that we did all through history.” So that was a very, very safe and legitimate place for us to sell the show without ever having to say what I’m free to say now.
