Event Recap: Creator Tony Gilroy and Cast Members Spend "An Evening with Andor" at PaleyLive in Beverly Hills

This past Friday evening at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, California, a number of Andor: A Star Wars Story cast members joined creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy on stage to discuss Lucasfilm’s acclaimed live-action Star Wars series with moderator Patton Oswalt. Below is my recap of this fascinating and entertaining PaleyLive event.

As I entered the theater to take my seat, a slide was being projected on the screen depicting a scene from the second season premiere of Andor: A Star Wars Story and the caption “An Evening with Andor" with the PaleyLive logo. Then a representative from the Paley Center for Media introduced that evening’s screening: the episode “Welcome to the Rebellion" that features Mon Mothma’s rousing speech in front of the Imperial Senate and her escape from Coruscant afterward. It was really wonderful to see this on the big screen and to hear the reactions of the crowd– the speech in question got a huge round of applause, as did each time Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) thrillingly shot someone with his blaster during the escape.

Then, after the conclusion of the episode, Writers Guild Theater employees began setting up chairs on the stage as the audience could hear actor Ben Mendelsohn providing hilarious commentary from the back of the room. Next it became time for stand-up comedian and actor Patton Oswalt (Ratatouille) to take the stage, declaring that he is “such a nerd for this show" and joking that the evening’s proceedings were going to go until 4:00 AM. Oswalt then introduced Andor producer Sanne Wohlenberg (Chernobyl), cast members Mendelsohn (Orson Krennic), Adria Arjona (Bix Caleen), Genevieve O’Reilly (Mon Mothma), and Luna. Gilroy was the final member of the panel to take the stage, receiving a partial standing ovation for his contributions to the series. Naturally Oswalt opened the discussion with a joke– “A general question for everyone: Kirk or Picard?"

Getting down to the real Q&A, Oswalt asked the cast how they adjusted to changes in their characters between the time jumps in the season. “For me it was very easy because I know the ending perfectly," Diego Luna responded. “[The real challenge was staying] as young as possible so people will believe it’s a prequel," he remarked to huge laughs. “We had time to work together. There were big chunks of preproduction, so we tackled that with a lot of clarity. Not only that, but we were working with amazing scripts." Here Genevieve O’Reilly chimed in, “Tony spoke about [the time jumps] like you drop the needle at a specific point. We got to drop into these beautifully rich character moments." At this point Patton had another extremely funny bit involving him asking Tony Gilroy a very specific Star Wars question about the backup hyperdrive on bounty hunter Dengar’s ship the Punishing One.

Getting serious again, Gilroy addressed the question of how they approached a story wherein the creative staff already knew the (very dark) ending. “We all know we’re gonna die, and we get up and do our laundry. In a practical sense, [that knowledge] never gets in the way." As far as the writing goes on a macro level, “We don’t have an agenda. We know what the big picture is, and you’re just kind of praying it works." Sanne Wohlenberg talked briefly about how she first became involved with the show. “When [Lucasfilm President] Kathy Kennedy called me, Tony had no idea who I was. But we had a most extraordinary journey [together]-- Tony was such an inspiring leader, and we really created a team that understood [his] DNA." Gilroy added, “We had 2500 people constantly [working] on the show. The scale of what we’re doing is just ridiculous. [Wohlenberg] keeps the noise out so that I could do my job."

Adria Arjona spoke about Bix’s journey and her intimate performance with Luna as Cassian: “It was honestly all on the page, and it’s beautiful that we got to explore this relationship in the second season. Captivating relationships stem from trust, and I trust [Diego]. [Bix is] going through something so tough, and she gets up every day and she tries. I love this season and this arc so much." Luna added about Cassian, “This is a character that everything has been taken away from him. Bix is everything [to him, and] Adria represented home for me [as a fellow Spanish speaker]." Arjona continued about Bix, “Once she goes to the [Force Healer], she realizes that Cassian is destined for more. Bix realizes that she’s gonna hold him back. In a heartbreaking way, she knows that she really needs him to go [on this mission], but she also believes that he’ll be back." Contrasting Cassian and Bix’s relationship with the rest of the series, Luna contributed, “In these two seasons, there are [lots of] beautiful monologues, but in this relationship they say very little. Arjona wrapped up this topic by commenting on her “goodbye" speech in the screened episode: “That scene meant so much to me. I had several takes that were unusable because it meant so much. But we finally got there; we did it."

At this point the conversation turned to Genevieve O’Reilly and how her character of Mon Mothma was forced to keep so many of her emotions bottled up inside. “If she doesn’t hold it in, she’s useless. She’s only effective to the rebellion if she can contain it all. [But] what the writing allows for is the pain in the silences." Gilroy added about the opening arc of the second season, “In that scene where she’s dancing, I realized the only people who know what’s going on are you in the audience and her. I’ve become so much more aware on this show about the way the audience takes things." O’Reilly continued, “You see the idealism of this woman just be crushed within her." Next Ben Mendelsohn responded to Oswalt’s comparison of his character Orson Krennic and the beloved Star Wars Wookiee Chewbacca. “I could be the dark-side Chewbacca," Mendelsohn remarked. “I don’t want to get all Shania Twain on you, but that don’t impress me much," he joked about having faced off against Darth Vader in Rogue One. Ben continued to amuse the audience with references to Ghorman Kalkite.

Moving on to the use of practical sets for Andor, Luna explained, “We shot honoring the best movies we’ve ever seen. The whole goal was to make this feel very realistic. The production design team would come and explain to you [the functions of everything on set]." This led to an uproariously amusing back-and-forth between Diego and Patton about the quality of the safe-house apartment on Coruscant… to the point where Luna even defended the Narkina-5 prison because of its cleanliness. “You really got seduced by the Empire, didn’t you?" asked Oswalt tongue-in-cheek. “I got seduced by Luke Hull," replied Luna, name-dropping the series’ talented production designer. Tony Gilroy brought some additional insight into this repartee: “We were able to inspire and allow mania in every department. People want to go crazy– [everyone working on the show was] so happy to do all this crazy [stuff]. It’s a show built by employees; there’s no wunderkinds on [Andor]. Look at the bodega [on Coruscant] and imagine how many people stayed up until 4:00 in the morning doing the graphics for that."’

O’Reilly continued the chat about the practical sets by addressing her big speech scene in the Senate. “All of the sets are practical, but the Senate is a big wide cavernous greenscreen, so it was different. That speech is the fulcrum of who that woman is. It was vital to me to be able to stand in that greenscreen and feel that loneliness and that terror." Wohlenberg observed what it was like being on set for that historic Star Wars moment: “Everybody was silent and mesmerized."

“I was gonna direct the first three episodes [of the first season]," Gilroy told Oswalt, going back to the beginning of the series. “We did the [writers’ room] for a week; it was absolutely insane. And COVID saved our show– I was praying the show would go away. I [didn’t want to die] for the show– we’ll get British directors. [laughs] Because of COVID, we learned how to make the show remotely. Let them swing every day. We ended up with a system that you would never come to normally– no writer on the set. It worked for us. I never went to set. If I went to set, it creeped everybody out; everybody starts looking over their shoulder. I was at home." Luna concluded the evening by talking about the show’s costume designer. “Michael Wilkinson does love the process of working with actors. There’s a discussion about every piece. If there’s pockets, there’s a reason for those pockets. The moment you’re on set, [the costume becomes] yours, but the character doesn’t just belong to you. It’s a collaboration with people like Michael. We’re all working together to build the same thing."

Andor: A Star Wars Story is available to stream in its entirety via Disney+. For a calendar of future PaleyLive events, be sure to visit the official Paley Center for Media website.