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'Andor' returns to Disney+ and takes 'Star Wars' to new and rebellious places

[April 22, 2025] By ANDREW DALTON

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — “Andor” returns for its second season on Disney+ with a three-episode premiere Tuesday and the weight of the “Star Wars” galaxy seemingly on its shoulders.

But creator Tony Gilroy says he and his collaborators felt little pressure from Disney and Lucasfilm as they sought to tell the story of a growing revolutionary resentment against the Galactic Empire and the birth of the Rebel Alliance leading up to the events of the 2016 film he scripted, “Rogue One.”

“We took no creative notes on this show,” Gilroy, whose deep screenwriting resume also includes four films in the “Bourne” franchise and 2007 Oscar nominee “Michael Clayton," which he also directed. He told The Associated Press that “I’ve never had this much freedom before, even in final-cut films that I worked on. The latitude was astonishing.”

The forthcoming season, whose production was delayed by Hollywood's 2023 strikes, are coming with high expectations from fans who have been disappointed in other recent “Star Wars” TV offerings, with no new movies released in the franchise in six years.

Revolution through the eyes of regular people

The new episodes trace how the spark lit in Diego Luna's Cassian Andor in the 2022 first season spreads through the galaxy. And they do it with characters and arcs rarely found in this realm before.

“This second season, it’s about all the layers, and the social and political climate that needs to happen for a revolution to erupt, for a rebellion to exist,” Luna told the AP. “The universe of ‘Star Wars’ never stopped to tell the story of these regular people that becomes crucial for the history that we know.”

Gilroy drew inspiration from a broad range of historical and fictional sources.

“Who’s ever going to get another chance to do another 1,500 pages on revolution again, with this much money and this much muscle, and everything else?” he said.

Epic scope, private conversations

But as epic as the story is, its most essential moments are marked by intimate, one-on-one conversations.

“I start small,” Gilroy said. “I work teaspoon by teaspoon.”

That includes a season-opening scene that starts with Cassian giving a young imperial mechanic the courage to help him in a major heist. He sells her on the ecstatic feelings of destiny rebellion can bring.

“It’s quite beautiful and idealistic also, like a revolution has to be, It’s a great reminder of how romantic the idea of revolution is,” Luna said.

Cast members say it can feel revolutionary working for Gilroy, who passes on the same freedom to them that Disney gives to him. They're never kept in the dark with the sort of script-rationing and secret-keeping that are the norm in major franchises.

“He doesn’t believe in withholding information as power,” said Adria Arjona, who plays Andor's partner Bix Caleen. “Before I read episode one, I knew the end. It’s just unheard-of.”

Her character's arc in particular brings real-world elements including addiction and even darker forms of trauma unlike anything “Star Wars” has shown before.

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Diego Luna poses for a portrait to promote "Andor" on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Stretching the ‘Star Wars’ canon

Gilroy said he didn't have to fight over the galaxy's canon at all. He had to get used to certain elements when he first worked within the franchise — no paper, no hinged doors, no knives, for example. But it's not necessarily held as sacred.

“I’ve seen canon stretch so much," he said. "It was really tight on ‘Rogue.’ But a lot of things have changed since then.”

The overall direction of the show was basically determined when work began on the series five years ago.

“I know what I’m doing with Cassian,” Gilroy said. “I know that the first year is the making of a revolutionary and the road to Damascus, that’s the first year, I know I’m leading to Rogue, I know where he’s gonna end up."

Other elements, like the route Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) takes from respectable senator to leader of the rebellion, were not predetermined. They were discovered in the writing and in the performances.

Her early-season path includes a wedding ceremony full of rituals — and dances — new to “Star Wars” that Gilroy invented out of whole cloth. He said one of the pleasures of getting to make something so large and sprawling is that he has gotten to use nearly every writing thought he has had.

“All I did for five years was just max out my imagination," Gilroy said.

Returning from Season 1, and ‘Rogue One’

Mothma is among the “Rogue One” characters who appeared in the first season and return for the second, along with Forest Whittaker's radical rebel Saw Gerrera, who this season gives a spine-tingling call to arms that is teased in the trailer: “Revolution," he preaches to an underling, "is not for the sane!”

Season 2 also sees the emergence of “Rogue One” characters for the first time in the TV series, including Andor's droid sidekick K-250, played by Alan Tudyk, and Death Star builder Orson Krennic, played by Ben Mendelsohn.

Luna took special pleasure in the return of Tudyk and his robot who speaks with no filter.

“I had so much fun playing with him, and having him back means a lot," he said.

The three episodes dropping Tuesday gel to form what’s basically a 2 1/2 hour movie, with Cassian stuck among rival rebel factions, Bix living in a farming community amid an imperial crackdown, and Mon Mothma having to play the patrician matriarch at her daughter's wedding, before all three are pulled in new directions.

The entire series has been planned in those kinds of clusters.

“We really think of it that we made eight movies in five years,” Gilroy said.

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