The second and final season of Lucasfilm’s “Andor” series—the prequel drama series to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”— debuts on April 22 and is only a few short weeks away. To celebrate early and get new and old fans up to speed, Disney recently announced that “Andor,” previously only available on Disney+, would be available on Hulu and YouTube—making a lot of sense when considering the series’ dramatic, adult-natured tenor (read our season one review). Disney also released a 14-minute season recap on YouTube, offering viewers a quick refresher before the new season begins.
To mark the occasion, we spoke to “Andor” Oscar-nominated creator/showrunner/writer and producer Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”) about season one and what’s to come in season two.
But one thing that’s not coming—despite fans desperate for him to continue at Lucasfilm—is Gilroy continuing with more “Star Wars” projects. Some parts of the fandom have been extremely vocal about Gilroy either creating another series or staying on board as some kind of creative director, a godfather, an advisor, hell, even some talk about the writer/director replacing Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy when she eventually steps down.
But Gilroy has had a good long run with “Star Wars”—an unexpected turn since he was never a die-hard fan to begin with—and said it’s time to try other things.
“Yeah, I think we’re all going to drop the mic here after this one and try to do something else,” he laughed when asked about his time in the galaxy far, far away. “Yeah, it’s time to do something else.”
But the filmmaker was quick to point out that what he’s achieved here could be his masterwork and called it the most “important” thing he’s ever done.
“I don’t think I’ll ever have a chance to work on anything as important as this,” he said of his “Andor” series. “This has been the most important thing I’ll ever get to do in terms of how much imagination went into it, how much work went into it, how much of a better writer I became doing it, how much I learned doing it, and how important the subject matter was and the scale of it. It’s hard to imagine that a situation like this would ever come around again.”
Gilroy was also cognizant and grateful to be able to deliver big Trojan Horse ideas into the mainstream. Yes, “Andor” is a hero’s journey and the story of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), going from self-interested grifter to leader, but it’s also about radicalization, rebellion, revolution and fighting tyranny. And Gilroy said he was very fortunate to tell such an important story on such a grand scale with one of the world’s biggest franchises.
“How many people have had a chance to write about it on this scale?” he asked rhetorically. “And then how many people had a chance to write about it on this scale and get to dramatize it and make it real? It’s never happened before with the most popular IP in the world. I mean, what a trip!”
The final “Andor” season will unfold over 12 episodes broken down into four chapters of three episodes each. The first chapter of season two will premiere on April 22, with subsequent chapters debuting each week, exclusively on Disney+.
