“You Can’t Talk Revolution If There’s No Love Involved”: ‘THR Frontrunners’ Q&A With ‘Andor’ Star Diego Luna

Yes, Andor is a Star Wars show with political overtones, the story about a rebel army slowly building and organizing to fight a fascist oppressor. Yes, there are laser gun battles and TIE fighters flying. But, as guests at a THR Frontrunners panel spotlighting the acclaimed Lucasfilm show learned, it’s also a show about love.

“You can’t talk revolution if there’s no love involved; here is something romantic and naïve behind the idea of revolution,” said Diego Luna, the actor who plays budding rebel, Cassian Andor, to the crowd at the San Vincente Bungalows in West Hollywood earlier in May.

“What drives revolution is that sense of love, of belonging, of family. That is what makes you fight,” he continued. “Yes, there is loss, there is injustice, there is pain. … We saw a lot in the first season.

“But all these characters, they are invested emotionally somehow with someone. That becomes a very important part of the second season, to understand them. That is the richness of the writing. That we don’t just see people being capable of doing something, we understand why they are doing something. With a very few scenes, you understand why they would want something better.” 

The packed event featured the screening of season two’s third episode, “Harvest,” the climax of the first story arc. (Andor has a unique structure in that the 12 episodes are divided into four three-episode blocks, each block taking the audience one year closer to the fateful and very definitive event of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the 2016 movie for which the series serves as a prequel.)

“Harvest” was the culmination of an elaborate and politically fraught wedding ceremony for the daughter of Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and featured a thrilling rescue of Andor’s loyal group, including his romantic partner Bix, played by Adria Arjona. 

And it also showcased some of the top-notch creative elements the series has going for it. The exacting costume work by Michael Wilkinson and set design by Luke Hull, the minute attention to detail ensuring that the cultures created feel true, the acting denoting complex characters that are as real as any modern day-set drama. Andor, as a series it must be noted, deepens the Star Wars story in unexpected ways, giving nuance and resonating themes to what was only hinted at before. 

The show was conceived by Tony Gilroy, who worked on Rogue One and managed the intricacies of a giant production that had several spinning plates at all times. And while Gilroy is definitely the mastermind behind the show, Luna elaborated how the show is a true collaboration, starting the writing stage, where Gilroy brings in the set designer.  

“In his writing, (Tony) involves Luke Hull, who is the set designer,” said Luna, before using a movie theater as an example. “When he is going to write about a cinema and a screening that is going to happen in that cinema, he sits down with Luke Hull, and says, it’s going to have five people sitting like this, it’s going to be packed, it’s going to have wood. They design the place, then he goes writing. So when he writes, the action can be very specific, the action belongs to a place.” 

That collaboration continues to the next stage, involving the actors. “The actors get close to the material and we read and we talk to him and we question and we suggest things. And that enriches the page.” Directors are also given autonomy and the tools to do their jobs. 

With characters at different points in their arcs depending on the story block, and at different points in the galaxy, keeping track of everything required a well-oiled production machine. Season one lay the foundation, and for season two, the show was able to expand the stories, the settings, the characters, all thanks to the already seasoned production system. 

“The pre-production of two other blocks is starting, the post-production of what you shot is happening, the shooting of the one happening is going on, and you have the same team for all of it,” described Luna. 

One of the more amusing parts of the evening was hearing Luna describe first being cast as Andor for Rogue One. He recalled getting an out of the blue phone call asking for meeting with that movie’s director, Gareth Edwards, the meeting with Edwards in a deserted restaurant and then “a year and half of craziness” of the two of them trying to convince the studio that Luna as the man for the part.

“I couldn’t tell my family. I flew to London once, they got me through the back door of a hotel to do an audition there,” he said of the process. “It was bizarre.”

This edition of THR Frontrunners was sponsored by Disney+.