No one had high expectations for Andor when it first aired on Disney+ in 2022: yet another Star Wars show, this time focusing on a second-string character from Rogue One (albeit one of the best and most acclaimed movies in the series). But in the hands of Bourne trilogy screenwriter Tony Gilroy, this galactic runt grew into something truly colossal: an epic of armed rebellion that’s not just the most exciting Star Wars story since The Empire Strikes Back, but a forensic and timely examination of the mechanics of resistance and what it means to stand up against fascism.
The show’s second and final season starts this month, tracking the exploits of Rebel spy Cassian Andor – played by Diego Luna – across four years, as he wrestles both with the rise of the Empire and his own increasingly troubled conscience. We sat down with showrunner Gilroy to discuss his time on the series, from first concepts to the stunning second season – and why you can’t say ‘fuck’ in a galaxy far, far away…
Are you done with the Star Wars universe now?
I think I’ve earned my stripes! It’s been 10 years, so I think that I’ve contributed enough. With this show we’re really trying to pick up a different audience – one that won’t watch because it’s Star Wars. I want people to know that you don’t have to know anything to come into the show and start watching it from the beginning. It’s designed that way. My wife is totally Star Wars averse – she was very suspicious of this show all the way through, and she’s hooked.
At the same time, I always knew we were asking a lot from the existing Star Wars community. But I wanted the people who were most reluctant in that community, even if they didn’t like what we were doing, to at least say we weren’t half-assing it. We’re not making fun of it. It’d be a crime to take something that so many people care about and fuck with it carelessly.
Who else is going to get this much money to tell a story about revolution?
George Lucas never hid the fact that Star Wars had real world relevance, in the case of the first movie he was thinking about Vietnam. Was that a source of inspiration going into this?
Sure. I mean, it’s baked into the tapestry of it. For me, it was a combination of two things. One was being offered this enormous canvas, this incredible opportunity. It was always just this gigantic thing, the resources were seemingly unlimited.
And the second is that it’s a story about revolution, and the making of a revolutionary. I’ve been an amateur idiot home historian forever. I’m fascinated by the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, Thomas Paine, Oliver Cromwell, Mao. But I’d been fascinated with no hope of ever using it. When would I ever get to use it? And then here’s this. Who else is going to get to do this? Who else is going to get this much money and this big a canvas to tell a story about revolution? So that’s really the reason I tiptoed in.
Did you have any doubts that you’d be allowed to tell the story you wanted to tell?
No, I’m too old and too smart for that. I really like making sure that people are talking about the same thing I’m talking about. I certainly wrote the first episode before we closed any deals. ‘I want him to go to a brothel. Then he’s gonna get rousted by two rentacops and he’s gonna have to kill them. Is that okay?’
It sounds insane, but we really had no creative notes on the show whatsoever. We were really allowed to go free range. We had economic restrictions from time to time, but other than changing one word in the show, no one ever really said, ‘Hey, wait a minute!’
Can you say what that word was?
Yeah, ‘fuck’. We had a few in the show. ‘Fuck the Empire!’ And I wrote a legal brief, basically, a memo about why I thought it was valuable and how I could justify its existence, and why, as a marketing tool and everything else, it was worthwhile. But they didn’t want to do it.
I noticed a ‘shit’ sneaking through in one of the recent episodes.
Yeah, that was all right. That’s permissible.
How much were you looking at events in the real world when you were writing? Because a lot of what happened in season 1 is even more timely now.
I mean, I live in the world. But I was not looking at the newspaper to [make the show]. If you’re trying to write a movie about current events, it’s not going to come out for five years. And then, who knows where we are? The digestive system of making and distribution is so long. I’m not psychic and it’s a fool’s game to try to pin the tail on the moment. Plus, I already had everything I needed: 6000 years of recorded history.
Andor feels like a very cine-literate show. Were there particular films that inspired you? It felt like you’d been watching Army of Shadows and A Room in Town a lot.
Totally, both of those, and Battle of Algiers. I just introduced a film on TCM, I was trying to find one that would relate to Andor and I came across this movie called This Land is Mine, this Charles Laughton film that [Jean] Renoir made in Hollywood in 1943. And it’s as if they did the Reader’s Digest version of so many things we’re doing in Andor. It was fascinating.
But there were two TV shows that I looked at: a series called A French Village, which is about seven years [of village life] under the Nazi occupation. And Babylon Berlin (below), which influenced us heavily. The idea that you could do something that beautiful, and that intense. That really rang my bell in a big way – that show really got to me.
Was it important to you to show the challenges inherent in resistance? That it’s not just running around blowing things up?
Yeah, I was always fascinated by things like where my characters get money from. Because every revolution I ever read about, the primary concern is where the resources come from. Benjamin Franklin went to Paris to beg for money. Or you’ve got Lenin begging Stalin to rob another bank. But nobody ever deals with that.
You also depict the media as a key tool of this oppressive state.
Propaganda is where it’s at. I mean, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident got America into Vietnam. Burn the Reichstag, then you can round up all the Communists and the Jews you want. All these false flags. You’re not telling the full story of revolution without it.
We watched the Empire take down Aldhani in the first season. We watched them take down Ferrix. This time we wanted to show something else. How do you take down something that’s really big and substantial and important? To not have the state use the media to control the narrative would be an absence. You’d be asking, why didn’t I do that?
It’d be a crime to take something so many people care about and fuck with it
It’s not a massive spoiler to say that not all the characters will survive season 2. How does it feel to kill off a character you’ve spent so long developing?
It’s hard to call the actors. I almost found myself getting a little too soft about it, because I didn’t want to do it. It’s a tough call to make to an actor and say, like in On the Waterfront, ‘It’s not your night, sorry. Don’t make plans. But at the same time, I’m gonna make it great. It’s gonna be worth it and people are gonna really miss you.’
I understand you saw Star Wars when it was first released. What was that like?
It was a really hot day in 1977 and I was in Boston. I saw it at a matinee. I went with my roommate and a woman he was dating who was an emergency room nurse. The three of us went and I remember the day vividly. It was an event, you know? It’s so cool when movies are an event. I miss that feeling.
Given that TV can tell stories like this now, with basically the same VFX as movies and on a much larger scale, what future do you see for cinema?
I wrote a movie last year that I’ve been trying to get off the ground but it’s really scary out there, man. It’s really scary. I’m having trouble raising money. A number that two years ago would have been an easy number, all of a sudden seems terrifying. I don’t know what will happen.
But as dire as it seems, as horrible and shitty as it all is, there are some bright spots. There’s an audience there, but it’s fragmented. It’s all over the place. I mean, go to a restaurant. Eavesdrop. All people talk about is what they’re watching. That’s all they talk about. So how can things be bad?
Do you think current events will have a chilling effect on Hollywood? Is it simply harder to create when the world is so crazy?
I don’t know. I’m in it. We’re all in it. It’s hard to figure out where you are when everything’s spinning around.
Find out where Andor lands on our list of the greatest TV shows ever made.
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