Tony Gilroy is the first to admit that he doesn’t know everything about Star Wars.
“I’ve said it before, but my knowledge of Star Wars is incredibly deep for a five-year period, and then thin everywhere else,” Gilroy says. “Those limitations, however, are really helpful - the reason I think the show is good is because we’ve known where we're going to end.”
And now, with its second and final season, Andor A Star Wars Story has officially reached that end, leading directly into the events of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – a movie which Gilroy co-wrote.
StarWars.com spent some time with Andor’s mastermind and multi-hyphenate showrunner to break down each of these arcs, and to glean a little bit more about the journeys of Cassian, his Ferrixian friends, and the host of allies and enemies they’ve met along the way.
Arc One:
Start Your Engines
The first arc of Andor’s second season opens with a bang. Or rather, it opens with a series of several bangs, explosions, a top-secret TIE prototype…and some flirting to boot.
We’re transported to a Sienar research facility, an oft-mentioned company responsible for the creation of many of the Empire’s technological terrors, including the TIE Fighter. What follows is a pretty astounding “cold open” to the season, with a measured Cassian Andor infiltrating a testing facility in order to steal their high-powered prototype ship, the TIE Avenger.
“I wanted to immediately show what kind of business he's in now. I wanted to show how his life had changed and what he's doing. He is different now, and is a leader,” Tony Gilroy relates to StarWars.com. There’s purposefully no music at the top of the scene until Cassian sees off Niya, the nervous yet brave Sienar technician. But then what follows is loud, bombastic, and enthralling - the type of Star Wars storytelling that has become synonymous with Andor.
Grain, Grain Go Away
Another new planet introduced is the agrarian haven of Mina-Rau, now home for the heroes who fled Ferrix during the Season One finale. Gilroy explains, “I wanted them to go somewhere that I would want to be, somewhere really peaceful and friendly. I wanted them to be somewhere rather utopian where Bix could be and still be suffering. And also, I just wanted to get some bright sunshine into the show.”
Surrounded by large fields of grain, as well as those bright skies that the showrunner craved, Mina-Rau is positioned as the “bread basket” of the galaxy. “I wondered where all the food comes from for Coruscant,” says Gilroy. “I wanted it to be a successful community, because so much of the show is about community and then the destruction of community. It’s one of the great evils of tyranny and colonialism: it destroys communities.”
Because of this, the peaceful planet unfortunately becomes the next location in a series of tragedies for the aforementioned Bix, as well as Brasso, Wilmon, and B2EMO. According to Gilroy, that is purposeful as well. “Our heroes from Ferrix have become a found family after being cast out of a community that they really cared about. They then found a new place that’s sunny and wonderful, and it’s taken away from them again.”
The tragic end of Brasso hits that point even harder. A friend, confidant, and true leader, Brasso’s death is just another mark of sacrifice. “Every time someone dies, every time someone is taken away from them, it just makes it mean that much more. It hurts so much and drives them forward,” says Gilroy. “They’re fighting for Maarva, now they’re fighting for Brasso, they’re fighting for Ferrix all the way through.” Not that it makes it sting any less.
Rock? Paper? Scissors?
Another major subplot of this arc revolved around the bickering survivors of the Maya Pei Brigade, a small subsection of the fledgling revolution. Overcome with confusion and distrust, the band of rebels - “led” by Bardi and Gerdis, the latter played by Gilroy’s son, Sam - cause major problems for a disoriented Cassian. Their stories and characters were directly inspired by a real-life moment in the Gilroy family.
“I started writing the first episode with this big speech with Niya. It was noble and perfect and wonderful and classy and inspirational. I then went out for dinner with my family, and I was at the end of a long table with my son and Benjamin Norris, who is Johnny’s son-in-law.” (The Johnny in question is John Gilroy, Tony’s younger brother and producer of Andor.)
Star Wars history might have been made at that table. Gilroy continues, “It was a big, rowdy dinner, and they were both such idiots throughout the whole meal. I immediately realized that I needed the revolution to be stupid, too. It couldn’t just be beautiful.”
Gilroy took that dinnertime inspiration and went back to start writing “these Heckle and Jekyll characters in the woods” who could further act as a foil for Cassian. And, of course, he cast the two inspirations for the roles: Sam Gilroy and Benjamin Norris (star of Never Have I Ever and Abbott Elementary). It was a perfect fit. “Oh, my God, they’re such idiots, but they play them so well,” laughs Gilroy. “I was so nervous, because when you cast your family, it’s nerve-wracking. But they turned out to be pretty good together.”
The lush locale for the “idiots” was also a pretty stellar moment of coincidence. “I was talking with [Lore Advisor] Pablo Hidalgo, trying to figure out what planet this could be set on, and it turns out that Yavin 4 hadn’t been built at that point,” says Gilroy. “We decided that it would be just as good a place for Luthen to know about and use as a rebel hideout. It also tied into this idea that we’d said before: Cassian is at the birthplace of all these huge events. It’s his destiny.”
Welcome to Chandrila
Chandrila has been often mentioned in print material, noted as Mon Mothma’s homeworld as early as 1987 in West End Games’ RPG books. But it has never been on camera before,only recently appearing in Marvel Comics’ Battle of Jakku maxiseries, as well as the “I Am Your Mother” short in Star Wars Visions. The planet served as a perfect and rather serene place for many of Andor’s disparate characters to all appear together, including those you might not have realized knew each other. “When I figured out that Luthen could be working for Davo Sculdun, it gave me a lot of further insight: ‘Oh wow, Sculdun is a collector.’”
Inspired by real-life celebrations in Gilroy’s own life at the time of writing these episodes, Chandrila’s culture really shines through the intricate and ornate three-day matrimonial ceremony between Mothma’s daughter and Sculdun’s son. Gilroy also notes, “And who doesn’t want a wedding? It’s jazzy, it’s big, it’s lively, and it plays really well as a counterpoint to the other more sterile things that we get in the arc.”
Perhaps the biggest shock, however, is the presumed fate of Tay Kolma, Mon Mothma’s childhood friend and adulthood financial savior. “I liked the idea that I could basically take Kolma and turn him into Fredo Corleone,” reflects Gilroy, referring to the tragically doomed brother in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather saga. “And I won’t let [Mon] off the hook - she’s going to kill one of her best friends,” he says. “She doesn’t stop him from leaving and then turns around to dance. She has blood on her hands, but that’s part of loving her - if she doesn’t do that, maybe the Empire wins.
“She’s dancing to keep from screaming.”
Arc Two:
It’s All French to Me
For Gilroy, one of the most important challenges of the season was making sure that Ghorman felt real. A planet that had existed in the galaxy since 1990, Ghorman was first mentioned in a West End Games’ RPG sourcebook, prompting further questions from Gilroy. “We don’t know what Ghorman is. Why is there a massacre?” explains Gilroy. “There’s also a great dissonance in the canon, because in Legends, they have a ‘Tarkin incident’ 15 years earlier.”
In order to have an excuse to mine for their precious kalkite mineral, the Empire begins a targeted war against the Ghor - but not in the way the audience may have expected. “We figured out that the Empire was going to take them down through propaganda and provocation. The Ghor don’t bother anybody or do anything, but their pride in their community, their insularity - their “Ghorman-ness” - is the very thing that’s going to bring them down,” says Gilroy.
Revenge is a Cake Best Served Cold
“I wanted her to heal,” says Gilroy of Bix Caleen.
Bix, who suffered major losses through much of the show already, finds herself in an Axis network safehouse trying to cling to any semblance of her previous life. “Mina-Rau happened a year before,” he continues. “It felt right to have her really be in a place that was causing [the Rebellion] problems, causing problems for Luthen.”
Not only is Bix’s trauma a stressor, but the very deep relationship that has blossomed between her and Cassian seems to be even more pressing to Luthen. According to Gilroy, “There is the Human Resources aspect of this, of course. He’s not pro-inter-office marriage, obviously, but it’s hard, because Cassian is at the tip of Luthen’s spear.”
But where did their relationship come from? “I thought they belonged together,” says Gilroy. “They were ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ when they were nine years old. They look right together. They’ve been in love since they were children, in a way, and they’ve sort of circled each other. But now they’re very much together and the inevitability of their relationship has been realized.”
The relationship between Bix and Cassian is further developed and shown, especially in Arcs Two and Three, giving the filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their actors’ incredible skills. “Adria and Diego were a revelation in Season One to me, in terms of chemistry. You want a real love story, and you want to see what happens to real love under the pressures of revolution.”
The final, explosive moment of revenge against Dr. Gorst at the end of “What a Festive Evening” could have also been a little sweeter, Gilroy recalls in an aside. “I also wanted her to take a bite of that cupcake before she left, but they didn’t want to do it. I was outvoted.”
All Gas, No Brakes
For Gilroy, one of the greatest remaining mysteries of Rogue One was also revealed in the second arc. “What was Saw Gerrera sucking down in Rogue One? What was that thing?” Viewers now know it to be Rhydonium, a volatile fuel substance necessary to the Rebellion. It is an interesting concept, physically binding Saw to his fanatical cause. And it came from a pretty unlikely place: the late acclaimed director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack.
“Sydney used to fly jets all over the place and, if you worked with him, the first thing he wanted was jet fuel. Instead of money, he wanted jet fuel,” says Gilroy, who worked with Pollack on Michael Clayton. He continues, “So the idea that Luthen could provide Saw with fuel on demand makes it great for Luthen, great for Saw, and great for the Rebellion.”
Jet fuel is great for jets, but definitely not great for human consumption. It wasn’t GIlroy’s choice initially. “The idea that he’s been sucking down this toxic thing all this time, and then him trying to legitimize it was great. It was [screenwriter] Beau Willimon’s idea that ‘rhydo is the revolution’, that it just takes a spark and it’s off.”
This idea comes to a head in a powerful scene between Saw and young Wilmon Paak, played by Muhannad Bhaier, who goes toe-to-toe with the Academy-Award-winning actor. “Mo was such a surprise in the first season,” says Gilroy. “He’s promising, he’s young, and he’s turned out to be a really good actor.”
Wil is given even more to do in Season Two of Andor, and it was done in a very purposeful way by Gilroy and team. “He goes from being a kid, a son, a bomb thrower, to then having his first love affair. He becomes a man, and then a warrior, and then the new surrogate son for Luthen.
“I needed someone who believes in Luthen as Cassian stops believing in him. We get to see another revolutionary forged in front of us.”
Arc Three:
Ghorman’s Last Stand
There is a sense of inevitability with the final, high-powered moments on Ghorman. “We always knew where this was going to end,” Gilroy says. “There were two canonical moments on the calendar: the massacre at Ghorman and Mon Mothma’s speech and departure from the Senate. Those were the absolutes, those are what we had to deal with.”
The first of those absolutes also required a deft hand, and a pretty measured sense of the mature content. “There’s a level of violence we can’t get to, but we want to make it as gutting as possible,” Gilroy says. Even more tricky, however, was the actual editing required for the entire sequence, he recalls. “The hardest thing was to know where we were all the time, because there were a lot of people to pay attention to. I want you to keep the reality of the situation in the dizziness of everything that’s happening.”
The episode itself crystallized when they focused on the fate of a long-standing character. “We spent a lot of time massaging the cut so it didn’t go on too long and didn’t go too quick. But we really realized that it was Syril’s episode more than anything else. No matter what we’re doing with all this Ghorman stuff, at the end of the day, it is about this guy, until he’s not there any more. It’s really the payday in my mind.”
The Wait is Over
As the series marches towards Rogue One, familiar faces begin popping up in Season Two, with the obvious additions to the cast being Alan Tudyk and Ben Mendelsohn. “K-2SO and Krennic are not just iconic characters, they’re also both just great to work with,” says Gilroy.
It was worth the wait to see these fan favorites again, and it was for good reason. As Gilroy explains, “I had to wait for K2. He’s just not good for storytelling - it’s really hard to take him around and do anything with him. It has instant limiting factors when you do it, and it had to be really good when he finally arrived.” The menacing KX droid transforms into a familiar face at the end of Arc Three, but it’s the fourth arc where the droid really gets to shine.
“People have had to be very patient,” acknowledges Gilroy. “Alan has had to be very patient. But I knew from Rogue One how powerful and great K2 is. I also know how hard it is to tell stories when he’s involved, whether you’re telling a love story or just trying to be secretive.”
That is not the case, however, for the acting masterclass exhibited by Mendelsohn, stresses Gilroy. “With Ben, the trick is just to add water. You know, just get him to set, put that white cape on him, and get out of the way.”
Figure of Speech
Among many other things, Andor is known for its intense character studies, explosive action, and its phenomenal writing. Mon Mothma’s departure from the Senate required all three of those elements to balance each other. “Mon leaving the Senate is an important, pivotal moment, and I wanted to make sure that we had the full speech,” says Gilroy. “She was always going to give that speech, man, and she’s got to give it all away. It’s got to go all out.”
And if she was going to go all out, the audience needed to hear it - or at least Cassian needed to hear it. “We then had to figure out a way to have cameras all over the Senate, and through the broadcast,” recounts Gilroy. “We wanted Cassian to hear the speech in its entirety for two reasons - you want him to hear how powerful it is, and you also want him to go back to Yavin 4 and tell General Draven that he doesn’t need to hear [her second Star Wars Rebels speech] because, ‘No, I’ve heard her speak already.’”
Arc Four:
Luthen and Kleya
The tenth episode of the season stands apart from the rest, if only because of its lack of the titular hero. However, it was full of moments that were incredibly important to both Gilroy and to the entire series. “You talk about landmark scenes, and you sketch them out, like, ‘Oh, my God, I have to have this.’ For instance, you have to have the Dedra and Luthen dénouement scene, so we just started sketching her at the gallery. Why would she go there? What would she do?”
After that deadly confrontation, the episode shifts to flashbacks, peppered with sketches of Luthen and Kleya’s history, which changed over the years. “Even before the first season, Stellan [Skarsgård] and I had some really interesting conversations about what Luthen’s backstory was,” recalls Gilroy. “There was a very different but emotionally similar origin story for him, and then at one point Stellan said to me, ‘I don’t want revenge. Everyone else has revenge. Don’t make it revenge.’”
It provided complications, but nothing that Gilroy and team couldn’t solve. “There are only a certain number of reasons that you change your life, and one of them is just absolute self-disgust. So we found a way for him to have a bellyful of it at the right moment.”
Elevated to an even more prominent role in Season Two is the mysterious and determined Kleya Marki, played by Elizabeth Dulau. “Elizabeth just blew us away every day that we worked with her, and so we wanted to do more and more with her,” states Gilroy. “We always thought that their relationship was one that really demanded to be explained. We also made the decision to keep Kleya as consistent as a child as she was an adult, that she was always fully formed in a way.”
General Hospital
Intercut with these flashbacks are Kleya’s modern mission: finding Luthen within the locked down Lina Soh Hospital on Coruscant. Gilroy looks back at that part of the Andor shoot fondly. “The hospital location was a favorite because it was so vulnerable budgetarily. It was always under pressure and maybe wasn't going to happen, and then it turned out to be an exquisite, efficient set.”
It’s also indicative of a larger maturation across the course of the show for the filmmakers. “When we were starting off, we were terrified of Coruscant. What were we going to do? It’s so big! So the idea that we could do this massive hospital and really show another part of Coruscanti life - I was really blown away by what everybody else did there.”
Security Blanket
Even more than the hospital, however, the Andor showrunner found “comfort” in the stark halls of the Imperial Security Bureau headquarters. “Those scenes just revealed themselves exactly as they are supposed to be - and everyone just loves that set. Everything shoots great in there.”
They also provided an opportunity to extend the white-garbed supporting cast of ISB supervisors, including Luthen’s mole Lonni Jung. “At the end of Season One, I bet if you asked me whether Lonni would last much longer, I would have said no,” says Gilroy. “But then we started to map out how we were going to get the information that they have at the beginning of Rogue One about Jedha and Galen Erso. Where did that information come from?”
For Gilroy, this initially seemed like a very complicated problem, but it slowly (and “incredibly fortuitously”) started to lay out and present itself. “It went from Dedra, who snuck in legitimately, to Lonni to Luthen to Kleya. After Lonni Jung gets the stolen information, all of a sudden it gets very inertial.”
Time Flies
Andor may be over, but its legacy continues as both a part of the Star Wars mythos and as a part of the lives of those who worked on it. The last day was fraught with similar emotion for Gilroy and the entire crew.
“When we finished on the last day at Pinewood Studios, everybody knew it was the end. We put up a big screen, and some of the editors had made a really great Season Two reel. We had a couple hundred people watching it, with a lot of crying. For most people, it was five years of their lives. It was five years of my life.”
With its conclusion, the show takes on a rather timeless appeal, and that was done through Gilroy’s incredible attention to detail. “I think the key to making something timeless is to make it so deep and rich, so that you can watch it once and go through the story, but then there’s so much more in there,” says Gilroy. “So much attention has been paid to each deep frame of the story that you can find other things in it every time you see it. You can see how hard everybody worked, and you can see how things connect in ways you didn’t see before. To me, I think ‘timeless’ means that you can just go back and watch something over and over again.”
Now that his Andor journey is over, Gilroy is proud of his achievement, and also confident in his contribution. “I know that I’ve always been viewed as a Star Wars outsider. I don’t think that’s true anymore. At this point, I have over 24 hours of Star Wars canon on my resumé, so I think my papers are in order.” We tend to agree.
