Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy: “We’ve essentially made four Star Wars movies for the first half!”

Taking place prior to the events of Rogue One, the Andor series will explore a new perspective from the Star Wars galaxy, focusing on Cassian Andor’s (Diego Luna) journey to discover the difference he can make.

The series brings forward the tale of the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire and how people and planets became involved. It’s an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue where Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.

Rogue One writer Tony Gilroy (pictured above with Diego Luna) is the series’ creator and showrunner and we sat down with him to discuss the similarities between this and the movie, and why we can’t get enough of Cassian…

What is it about the character of Cassian Andor that pulled you in to create a series around him?

So, we know some things about him from Rogue: He’s really complicated, morally. He’s been dedicated to the rebellion for some period of time. And he has been doing this since he was six years old. As he says, he’s obviously very passionate about it.

He’s the one that they trust to send out on this incredibly important mission. During that mission, he does what a great tactical leader does, he delivers, he changes his mind when he needs to, he seduces the people that he’s with to convince them what to do, he lies when he has to lie. Then when all that’s over, he sacrifices himself for everybody. Willingly. That’s a pretty compelling character!

Then you also have the fact that you have Diego Luna, who’s not just a great actor, but just a great human and collaborator.

So if you can make a show about how he got there, and you could make that show about getting there as difficult as possible, that’s a pretty interesting thing to do, I thought…

Will Andor feel different to Rogue One?

Well, we’re making [Andor] in two halves. We’ve essentially made four Star Wars movies for the first half! That’s what it feels like and we’ll be making another four for the other half.

So, you’ve got a lot more real estate. The opportunity is really different. You can do much more complicated storytelling in this long form than you can in a film. In a film you’re so restricted by what you can do as every moment is so valuable.

Was it always on the cards for Cassian’s journey to be explored through a series rather than a movie?

Yes. [That was] Kathy Kennedy and Disney’s idea in the beginning. They wanted to do the five years beforehand.

Would you ever be tempted to do a back story of any of the other Rogue characters?

It would be fun to do. That wasn’t the brief when we started [but], I mean, the Bodhi Rook story would be fascinating, right…!?

What’s your favourite planet in the series?

Well, I really love Ferrix, where we spend the bulk of the first season – in his hometown basically. Just because I don’t know if there’s any place else that we’ll build with as much complexity and as much depth as we do that. We’re going to a lot of places in the second half and some very intense places that we’re building up, but we’re not staying in any place quite as long.

We’re in and out of Ferrix for the whole 12 episodes in some way and we built a deep culture there.

That’s always a really good feeling when you’re working on something and you really feel like the set and the life and the story goes way beyond the frame and you’re just shooting the piece that you want to as opposed to just hanging on for dear life.

We really built a world there, so Ferrix would be hard to top because we really went all in on that and a bunch of really inspired creative people worked on that for a very long time.

What do you want audiences to take away from the series?

Oh man, I want what I always want: I want them to come back! I want people to be ‘what happens next?’ and I think there’s a real opportunity here. We will have failed if people aren’t deeply emotionally connected to a lot of the characters that we have in the show. There are so many characters and there is such great variation… it will be really interesting to watch where people align themselves.

We’ve already seen people begin to pick people that they begin to identify with and I think that there are all kinds of opportunities for that.

I [also] really want people to cry. You want them to laugh As a dramatist, you really want a deep connection with the audience. You really want to affect people.

The first three episodes of Andor are out now on Disney+.