Tony Gilroy and Diego Luna on the Joy of Knowing Andor’s Inevitable End

Last night Andor season two had its Hollywood premiere with a house full of fans and the creative teams behind the hit Disney+ Star Wars series. io9 was in attendance (with my dad, who introduced me to Star Wars, in tow) for the momentous occasion.

After a screening of a season one sizzle reel and the first act of Andor season two, creator Tony Gilroy and star Diego Luna led a conversation with the cast about the making of the series and their reaction to the success of its first season.

Gilroy admitted they weren’t ready for the near-instant outpouring of support. “We had no idea. We made the whole [first] season under a blanket … there’s no test screenings or focus groups because it’s Star Wars. Everything’s secret. We finished and were like, ‘Wow, I think it might be okay.’ We started dribbling it out and by week three it was Christmas every week for us. It was very affirming.”

Luna jumped in. “When we premiered Rogue One in Mexico, I was there with my two kids. It [was] fantastic, it was beautiful, but after 20 minutes my daughter was asleep,” he said.

But things changed when it came to Andor. “The first season she watched it all and said, ‘Oh, I love it, dad.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s it.’ I did it for them and to connect with Star Wars the way I connected when I was their age.”

Sitting there with my own dad while hearing that really hit home. I wouldn’t be working this job if not for his love of Star Wars, which he watched at cinemas during his youth in Mexico City, where he and Luna are both from.

As Andor draws to a close catching up to the events of Rogue One, Luna also shared how performing as Cassian Andor one last time was so emotionally charged.

“Every promise he makes, it means one thing for him, and for me as an actor it means another. It’s fully charged on the emotion, but I needed to give Cassian this feeling of awakening… life is starting for him,” he said.

It was a particularly intriguing task, diving into a character who doesn’t know what’s to come—while Luna has already played the final act of Andor’s life in Rogue One. In Andor, he has “something to fight for, that there’s family, there’s belonging, that he can build something. He has to have those dreams in order for this second season to exist. But there I am as an actor knowing, ‘Oh, shit.’ And that’s what makes this second season, I think, so exciting because we know the ending, you know, which makes this whole project very special because we know the ending. Therefore, there’s complete freedom to go backwards.”

For Gilroy, the final season of Andor presented a unique opportunity. “We have four blocks of three episodes, and we need four years to cover. How about if we did one year every block and jumped a year?” he said, referring to changing the show’s original plans for a five-season run.

“It sort of was just sitting there. It really was like: it was a problem and there was the answer. And then when we started to sketch on it and figure it out, it was like, ‘Oh my God, what if we come back for three days each time? Could you do that? Could you have all this negative space?’ And it turns out that it’s a really exciting thing to work on. And then it’s not just exciting to work on, but it propels the story. And it lets the actors do all kinds of interesting things to fill in the negative space.”

“It was really energizing,” Gilroy said. “It went from being a desperate fear to being something we were really excited about. And I don’t know how many writers have had a chance to work in a format like that. We couldn’t find a comp for it. I don’t know if anybody’s done it before, but it was really providential for us. It was a really big gift of the gods for that, for that answer to come up for us.”

The change was a welcome one for Luna. “It was gonna be two years and a half to do one season—it would have been more than a decade of you know, firing blasters. Like, no one will buy it, a 55-year-old guy going like, ‘Oh, no!’ And [be] the guy [he] was 20 years ago. It’s also a prequel of a prequel. It’s just like, you know, it’s simply impossible. And we had an amazing idea because at the end of it, this is a homage to cinema, to the genesis of Star Wars, because it’s four blocks [of television] that last the time of a film.

Gilroy added, “We think we made eight movies in five years.”

The end result has been a meaningful experience for Luna, who thanked the fans in attendance and then turned to his leader and co-stars. “Tony said to me, let’s do a story where we can see how revolutions erupt, how revolutions happen, how this rebellion is possible, what needs to happen, what is the social climate, the political climate,” he said. “And I have to say that this was a revolution for me in every possible way. And revolutions are about community. And this community we created, I’m going to keep forever. It’s been six years of being exactly where I want to be. And I want to thank you all for that.”

Andor season two premieres April 22 on Disney+.

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