Befores and Afters take a closer look at the Creature Shop behind the creatures and droids of Andor season 2, and chat with Neal Scanlan about his teams stellar work on the season including B2-EMO, Moreoff, and the elderly alien Kleya Marki abducted at the Lina Soh hospital on Coruscant.
In terms of creatures, one of Scanlan’s highlights was Senator #4, a Cingulon seen speaking with Mon Mothma. “This was a make-up effect. I always enjoy it when there’s a make-up that might work. We called him ‘Lettuce Head’. He was played by Nick Kellington. I think for the senators, generally, they gave us a little bit more of an opportunity to show our wares and do a little bit more of a performance, both a performer’s performance and an animatronic performance.”
Some creatures featured in season 2 had actually made brief appearances in season 1, or even earlier Star Wars films. The ageing hospital patient used by Kleya Marki to get access to Luthen was originally only glimpsed in the first season, and then fleshed out for this sequence. It involved animatronics for eye blinks and mouth movement, and a special set-up to enable a particular ‘gurn’ look when the mouth was being closed. Another character like this was the furry Gigoran known as Moroff, who hangs around Saw Gerrera. This character, originally featured in Rogue One, was played by Ian Whyte. “I love the design,” says Scanlan. “Tony loved him, too. He felt that the presence was right, so he was brought forward. The character is made like a Wookie, essentially, in his constructional approach. It’s very much a similar sort of version of Chewie in the fact that it’s a man in a fur suit, with much less animatronics, just that his head is higher than Chewie’s.”
You can hear our interview with Mynn Robertson Bruce, one of the performers behind ‘Granny’ on a recent episode of Making Tracks.
