In its expansion of the Star Wars universe with the Disney+ series Andor, Lucasfilm gave two-time Oscar nominee Tony Gilroy full rein to travel where no other series or movie in the original George Lucas created franchise went before: as an allegory to our globe and history’s sense of revolution and social hardships.
While Andor is a prequel series to the movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (which in turn is a prequel to the original 1977 movie Star Wars: A New Hope) in its tale of burgeoning rebel commander Cassian Andor, one doesn’t need to be schooled in the sci-fi series canon to appreciate the fruits of its drama.
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The story centers on Cassian, a native Kenari whose homeland planet has been plundered of its resources and left an uninhabitable environmental wreck. He is a refugee by today’s standards, living on the fringe of society. That society is ruled by a utilitarian structure — the Empire — bogged down in red tape and stepping on freedoms. An independence and a voice is rising among the greater people of the universe, specifically on the planet of Ferrix, where Cassian lives. Watching the show, you’ll notice clear echoes from the headlines today on the Ukraine war, Mexican border control and politicians trying to gain footing behind the scenes to thwart totalitarian-run governments.
As Andor supervising sound editor David Acord put it at a Deadline Virtual House event for the Disney+ series, “every backdrop is war” in Star Wars movies, with the Gilroy-created series “an examination of the human toll that takes.”
Adds Andor star and EP Diego Luna, the show is about “what regular people are capable of.”
“The story matters because we live in a very complex world. It needs citizens to be active. This is a show about people having to react to oppression. There’s no other way, there’s no magic, there’s no Jedis, there’s nothing but your hands, and the ability you have to become a team and work with others. A beautiful reminder to today,” adds Luna.
“He sounds different, looks different from everyone else,” says Luna about Cassian Andor. “It’s a story of someone who has been migrating, been forced to migrate, a refugee.”
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Actress Genevieve O’Reilly, similar to Luna in his approach to Cassian, had the opportunity to expand greatly on a Star Wars character she previously played in Rogue One, Mon Mothma, a rich senator who becomes the leader of the future Rebellion. Quietly, apart from the Empire, Mon Mothma is forming secret alliances and funneling money to build the rebellion. In her character, one can’t help think of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during the Trump era; O’Reilly however took inspiration from “many women across the political spectrum from different nationalities” to build her character. “How gritty and dangerous and lonely and isolated it is to be this woman as a voice in opposition to a very threatening empire,” she said.
Andy Serkis returns to the Star Wars universe in Andor after providing the voice of the evil Empire leader Snoke in Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Here in Andor, he plays Kino Loy, a fellow prisoner to Cassian Andor in the Empire’s workcamp at sea. Cassian winds up there after being punished for a misdemeanor — largely due to the fact that he’s an outsider. The prison sequence –a unique set entailing electrocuting floors — plays out over several episodes and is a character-defining moment for Cassian. Loy lords over the prisoners to meet the construction demands of the Empire; the denizens assembling mechanical parts to what we learn will be part of a great weapon. If Loy meets his numbers, his sentence will be trimmed. Or, so he thinks.
Reveals Serkis, “I based this character on my brother-in-law, a shop steward, and very active unionist who was sacked from a job, and was forced to cross, at the end of the day.”
“He had no other option from being out of work for a long time; he ended up crossing a picket line and actually lost his soul,” adds the actor.
“I channeled him in a way. Tony had written this man who once, I imagined, had the power to galvanize people and completely lost it and just went about self-survival, about getting through and actually became very selfish and just wanted to hit his targets,” continues Serkis.
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Also joining us at Deadline Virtual House were Andor EP Sanne Wohlenberg (Emmy winner for HBO’s Chernobyl); Emmy-winning and three-time Oscar-nominated composer Nicholas Britell; DP Damián García; and costume designer Michael Wilkinson. All were integral in world-building a completely different areas of the Star Wars universe, that of the planets Kenari and Ferrix.
Wohlenberg was key in overseeing all the below-the-line departments and being a bridge between them and Gilroy’s writers room, which included his brother Dan Gilroy and House of Cards EP Beau Willimon.
She brought along Emmy-winning Chernobyl production designer Luke Hull, who was “like a writing partner” to Gilroy, says Wohlenberg, “contextualizing the world he was proposing and fleshing it out.”
“His approach to design was so appropriate for Tony’s approach of writing. As much as Andor is set in a galaxy far, far away, the authenticity and the truths of these worlds we were creating were absolutely vital,” the EP told us.
Says Wohlenberg about Andor: “It’s a story about people in the real world, albeit far, far away.”
You can watch the first season of Andor on Disney+.
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