The showrunner illuminates the long road to Maarvas big moment.
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Spoilers follow for the first season ofAndor.
In a year of relentless IP churn,Andorfeels like a miracle.
There are no Jedi here, no Skywalkers, no discussion of the Force.
Emperor Palpatine is mentioned but not seen.
Can you talk about the choreography of the final episodes, and about Maarvas funeral turning into an uprising?
I knew where I was going to end.
The idea of the funeral was amped up by the idea that Maarva could do her own eulogy.
We did this inRogue Onewith the Mads Mikkelsen hologram and it was so potent.
Somewhere between an IRA funeral and a second-line New Orleans funeral.
Music is a huge part of it.
Nick Britell, the series composer, and I had just met; we hadnt worked together.
How we got to know each other was making that piece.
We built the music, we had it all chaptered out, and it has its own choreography.
Theres a horn section, theres a flute section.
We thought about how great it would be, tactically, for the community to split up their resources.
Its very dramatic, all those people converging with the different pieces of music.
Ferrix is one of a few new planets on this show, as well as Kenari and Aldhani.
Everything I do starts really, really small.
I mentioned those gloves thats a tactile entry point for me.
We built the ritual of the Time Grappler.
And you ask questions: Where do they eat?
How do they live?
Whats the community like?
Whats the caste system?
Screenwriters, dramatists if youre working well, youre making worlds all the time.
So its just making a world where you have to do everything.
Theres a ferry, and theres a park and ride.
What do they charge you?
Wouldnt somebody be outraged by that?
We went really, really deep.
And were going to do it again were doing it again right now.
What should we glean from that?Its a blood oath.Im in.
This question is resolved if we go forward.
The issue we willnotexamine in season two is his commitment to the Rebellion.
It will be about many other things.
Youre a great writer of negotiation scenes.
I dont do that very much.
In a glib, quote-y kind of way, all relationships are negotiations.
Im drawn to people at cross-purposes.
Theres not much difference writing Luthen and Cassian in the factory and Eedy and Syril at the breakfast table.
You have to be inside everybodys skin on both sides of the net.
Whats the easiest part of planning an action scene, like the shootouts and the space fights?
It has to be on a floor of reality; you have to believe in it.
It has to be the same thing in a conversation scene.
I have to reorient the reality of what happens.
I have to reset the ground rules.
What Ive found over time is theres no shortcut other than making it real: Why are you here?
Why are you in the car?
Why are you on the phone?
Why are you doing this?
What happened before this?
What do you want?
What led us here?
If you own all that, it’s possible for you to go forward.
Absolutely surprised.Okay, well, thats what I want.
I want you to turn the page.
For Kino, whats better than that line?
And whats better than realizing that hes known that all day long?
If you already had a brand-new halo, what better way to light it up?
But Maarva, I know Ive got an ace in the hole there.
I wouldnt do that if I didnt know I had a card to play.
Can we do anything new and fresh?
If we cant, well do something else, but lets try.
Then someone said, What if the floors are electric?
And we spent the better part of several days building the prison.
And what are they building?
Well, theyre building a part for the Death Star.
Of course they are!
What better thing to have him building than the thing that will ultimately be the place he ends?
The moment we had that idea, we had to keep it secret.Dont tell anybody.
We have this remarkable visual-effects department with Mohen Leo and TJ Falls.
They were with us onRogue One.
Its hard to express how important they are.
We make small asks and treasures come back.
They were like, Can we play with that idea?
They went away and tinkered with that; they had a lot of fun.
Were the shots of Syril eating spherical cereal a Death Star clue?You know what?
As closely as I monitor everything every sideburn I was very pleased to see the cereal.
Its a happy accident.
MaybeToby Haynesthought of it.
If it was, it was a communal decision outside the realm of my purview.
Andorfeatures a few actors returning fromRogue One, including Diego Luna and Genevieve OReilly.
I knew he could do everything.
Genevieve was a drive-by for me inRogue One.
She could do all these things people hadnt asked her to do.
You start to realize what actors can do and you lean into it.
How far could she go?
We kept making it deeper as we went and as we realized how cool she is.
She has to protect herself.
Everybody is watching all the time, and she has nobody she can count on.
Her ability to switch back and forth between public and private is entirely personal and with the camera.
I love actors that can do private that way.
With Stellan, it was kind of clammy.
What a great cover story.
But:Oh my God, secret identity.Is he going to be this guy here and this guy there?
He does this whole transition, this butterfly moment.
And you go, My God, thats just it.
For him, it was that gesture.
Luthens theme, I think its almost my favorite thing in the show.
When Nickplayed me that cue, I said, I want, like, a breath.
[Makes an exhale noise.]
Its like giving it away.
Cassians Do I look thankful to you?
made me think of Michaels Do I look like Im negotiating?
Dedra and Karen are both middle-manager-style villains.
Did you think about that while working on the series?No, it wasnt on my menu.
I have a go at stay away from anything I feel like Ive done before.
It rusts out everybodys intentions.
I guess I keep working on that all the time.
I was very moved by Nemiks manifesto and the idea that freedom is a pure idea.
Can you talk about writing that?Nemik went through a lot of passes.
We always wanted a Trotsky: the young, naive radical.
Then we cast Alex Lawther.
Even watching him audition, it was like,We can go anywhere.
The campfire speech he gives in Aldhani was the can opener.
The power of the manifesto episode 11, that scene, we had kind of late.
You get on a roll with those things, and you just venture to break your own heart.
Youre trying to write speeches for the things you believe in.
Then we married it to those shots, and when we did the music, it was really Nick.
It was a big burden.
Music asks for stuff.
What do you ask the audience for?
Are we being greedy?
Are we being proper?
Are we being respectful?
Im very proud of that speech.
Certain elements felt inspired by recent history to me.
Changing peoples sentences, fascism, oppression you could pull everything.
There are all kinds of people moving in different directions.
These are universal concepts.
I dont think past my frame at all.
What were working on now, the second part of this project, is not about Cassian becoming radicalized.
Different agendas and betrayals?
The tension of the next four years as things pull together?
But I wouldnt do more than that.
Thats more in destiny than plotting.
Im not thinking about the destruction of Alderaan.
Will we hear about Cassians sister again?Im not going to answer that.
Its what we do now.
That is the state of the art.
That will not change, and thank God its here.
Weve got interesting conversations about things going forward that Ill be happy to talk about next year.
Its like having a queer couple.
Its just a relationship.You want to be unconsidered about it.
You want to make it all as natural as you possibly can.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
