Friday 5th August was the day of the Star Wars: Andor Virtual Global Press Conference, and a selection of media outlets including Fantha Tracks were invited to watch Executive Producer Diego Luna (Cassian Andor), Genevieve O’Reilly (Mon Mothma), Kyle Soller (Syril Karn), Denise Gough (Dedra Meero), Adria Arjona (Bix Caleen) and Executive Producer, Writer and Showrunner Tony Gilroy discuss the series with moderator Joe Neumaier from the New York Daily News.
Let’s delve into some of the highlights of the conference, starting with Tony Gilroy’s inspiration to create the series.
TONY GILROY: There are a lot of characters in our show. Many of them are here today. But there are others. Everyone is going to be circulating and spinning and intersecting around the Cassian Andor story as we move towards Rogue One.
But it’s a potent moment in history. And a lot of people are facing a lot of really difficult times and difficult decisions along the way. And that’s what the show is about, the opportunity to do that on a large scale, on a big canvas, that’s why I’m here.
Star Diego Luna had his own reasons and motivations for returning to the character of Cassian Andor.
DIEGO: And for me, it’s quite relevant today to tell the story of what needs to happen for a revolutionary to emerge, to exist, to come to live, you know. What gives meaning in the life of someone to be willing to sacrifice everything for a cause, you know? What needs to happen? That that journey matters to me. And the character says stuff that it haunts me in Rogue One. You know that he started to fight since he was six years old. What does that mean, exactly? You know, why a six-year-old would miss his childhood and start a fight?
That, to me, is really interesting to know. He talks about a dark past. He talks about doing terrible stuff for the Rebellion. What is he referring to? I think that story matters. That story is interesting. And there is a lot of material there for us to play. So I was really excited to be able to go into that journey and give those answers.
Genevieve O’Reilly is no stranger to Star Wars, having appeared in Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One, and Andor gives her a unique opportunity to further flesh out the background of this pivotal character, first seen in Return of the Jedi almost 40 years ago.
GENEVIEVE: You know, like you’ve said, we’ve met Mon Mothma before in different iterations, in different versions of the Star Wars storytelling. And each time we’ve met her, we’ve met this kind of composed, regal, dignified woman who often like with Cassian in Rogue One, she is to send people out on a mission.
I think what’s extraordinary about how Tony has written Andor and where he has chosen to begin this story is so very different to where we find Mon Mothma in Rogue One. She is still that very dignified senator. But for the first time, we get to see the woman behind the role. We get to see a private face of Mon Mothma. We get to flesh out not just the senator, not just the would-be leader of a Rebel Alliance, but also the woman.
One of the characters mentioned in the latest clip from the show is Bix Caleen, and actress Adria Arjona discussed this pivotal character in Cassian’s life.
ADRIA: I liked a lot of things about Bix. I think she’s fearless. And she’s bold, yet really deep inside, she’s incredibly loyal and compassionate and cares a little too much for the people around her. And I think that’s sometimes at her own detriment. I think this boldness and powerful thing is sort of like a facade that she puts on for… She almost puts that as a show. But deep down, she cares deeply about the people around her. And I think that’s the part that I love the most about Bix.
Denise Gough plays ISB agent Dedra Meero, and the actress looked at a character who’s allegiances are decidedly dark by nature.
DENISE: So Dedra is an ISP officer. And when we meet her, she’s at the kind of low end of the ladder. And she’s incredibly ambitious and meticulous. And what I love about playing her is that, you know, she’s in this very male-dominated world. And she’s seeing around her the way that people are missing what she can see is happening.
We’ve been talking a lot about this today, both about Dedra and Syril and how they come into this world. They’re sort of outsiders within the ISB. And so yes, she’s clawing her way up the ladder. And I love portraying the effect that power just has on a person, like the danger of that pursuit of power and control, regardless of gender.
I mean, I do kind of love that you’re thinking oh, go girl. And then you remember, she’s in a fascist organization. [LAUGH] And so yeah, I’m getting a real thrill being able to play her.
Kyle Soller plays Syril Karn, a role Soller found enticing thanks to the writing of Tony Gilroy.
KYLE: Well, what attracted me to the role was Tony’s writing. He had created a character that was really three-dimensional and had a big question mark over him as to, you know, he could kind of go either way. He could go into the Empire. He could go into the Rebel Alliance. And he’s got a lot of gray area, and he came from a place of such lack and it’s such a pain in his home life, that he’s trying to fill this void within himself through the fascist, corporate, bureaucratic structure, where he finds order. And he finds a place to be seen if he can supersede his station and climb those ranks. And so really, what Tony created and having a character that wasn’t really sure about himself was what kind of made it the most fun to play.
Taking listeners questions, Genevieve looked deeper into the character of Mothma.
GENEVIEVE: I think the most exciting things about Mon Mothma is the bravery and where Tony has decided to begin. We meet Mon Mothma in a place we’ve never seen her before. We meet a woman steeped in Empire, navigating a very male-dominated Empire with a very powerful Emperor Palpatine at the top of it. Previously, in Rogue One or at other times, we’ve seen around maybe people with different opinions but with like-minded Rebels.
We find her in Andor very alone, living in a world of orthodoxy and construct. We see a woman who has had to navigate her ideals and her beliefs within systems of oppression. And so, we find her in a place we’ve never seen her before. We find her in a bit of a gilded cage. And so, what I’m excited for is for us to travel that story with her. To journey with her as a woman and finding her voice, like Diego said, reaching for voices that are fighting for similar things. Finding community, finding collaborators to be able to eventually be the leader that she becomes in Rogue One. So, there’s a journey to travel and I’m excited for people to hop on that train with us.
One notable tick in the box of Andor are the huge sets, constructed in the UK, specifically the Ferrix set built at Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire. Soller was clearly impressed.
KYLE: Every single drawer had something in it. Every cabinet had, I don’t know, a whole life inside. And there was this whole crowd milling about before we’d started filming, and the crowd kind of somehow was parted and there was this line of Stormtroopers. And at that point I had sort of forgotten that I was in Star Wars ’cause I was like, oh, I’m in this sociopolitical drama that’s also, like, a family drama and a love story and there’s all this, like, amazing stuff going on that’s, like, relevant to today. And oh s***, there are a bunch of [LAUGH] Stormtroopers. I dropped my coffee and my inner child was, like, pretty happy.
Adria Arjona continued with the admiration for these incredible sets.
ADRIA: And for some reason, I remember like 10 city blocks, that’s how big it felt for me. I think maybe it wasn’t. But I just remember like the first day sort of walking around and-and-and kind of getting lost in it and exploring. And it was so cool. And I also had made like a silly rookie decision of really going into this show and saying like, I’m not in Star Wars. I’m making a conscious decision that I’m not in Star Wars, I’m in this amazing show with Tony [Duveaux?], we’re doing this.
And then everything was a constant reminder, so it was like, oh, crap, every prop that was given, every set that you would walk in, everything’s like oh, man, I really am in Star Wars and sort of, like Kyle said, your inner child starts coming out, and the butterflies are going. You’re like, what did I get myself into? Like I can’t get out of it now. Yeah, that set was incredible. I remember there was one day where the director, one of our directors, told me to run, and I was like, well, where do you want me to run? He’s like, “Anywhere you want.” ‘Cause everything was filmable. Yeah, if I would go left, we could’ve filmed there, if I would go right, we could’ve filmed there, and it was just me exiting, and he could basically point the camera either left or right, and that was kind of cool.
Tony Gilroy also praised the set design and construction.
TONY: You know, we talked before about the set and the thing that they were talking about, our production designer Luke Hull, who did Chernobyl, I mean, he really is in the brain trust that puts the show together with Sanne and Luke and Leo, my brother John Gilroy, Cathy, the core group of people that put this together. I mean, Luke is just, I mean, he’s Mozart, and he’s a young production designer, and he’s just soaring. And they built an eight-and-a-half-acre city for us that we will use for all 12 episodes. And as they said, it’s a 360 set. And the community that we were allowed to build within it and the social structures and the rituals of it, because there are some really intense rituals about it, it really feels like a place, like what is it? You get to play God. We built a place, we built a whole culture, we built a whole life, we built a whole tradition, we had people care about it and anyways. It’s a fantastic maximal expression of imagination to be able to do this. It just fantastic to be able to do it. It’s thrilling.
Diego Luna summarised why Star Wars: Andor is a show that will hopefully appeal to a broad cross section of the Star Wars galaxy, and people beyond the limits of the fandom.
DIEGO: It is a show about us, it is a show about these people finding the strength to come up with a reaction, you know, to change and bring change to their reality. It’s very inspiring, I think. It’s huge, it’s big as Tony says. And it’s adventure and action at its best, what you expect from Star Wars, but then it goes very intimate and it’s very subtle and it takes time to understand each character and it has time for each storyline.
Thanks to Jessica at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures publicity for our virtual invite, and stay tuned for more Andor coverage as it arrives here on Fantha Tracks.
Gentle Giant: Star Wars: Star Wars: Rogue One: 1/6 Scale Bust: Cassian Andor @ ForbiddenPlanet.com – UK and Worldwide Cult Entertainment Megastore
