(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS & LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA'S "MAIN TITLE")
A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: For years, "Star Wars" has captivated audiences of all ages with epic action-adventure tales full of spaceship battles, lightsaber duels and a touch of the supernatural.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE")
ALEC GUINNESS: (As Obi-Wan Kenobi) Use the Force, Luke.
MARTÍNEZ: But the "Star Wars" spinoff series "Andor" is different. There's no Jedi Knights, no Darth Vader. It's a grounded story of ruthless officers of the Galactic Empire, and rebels taking big risks to fight back.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ANDOR")
DIEGO LUNA: (As Cassian Andor) I'd rather die trying to take them down than die giving them what they want.
MARTÍNEZ: The series stars Diego Luna as the thief-turned-rebel-spy Cassian Andor. We sat down with the show's creator, the screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy, for a preview of the show's second and final season.
TONY GILROY: The first season - it's the making of a revolutionary. It's someone who could care less about anything but themselves who, over the course of some months and a variety of really extreme circumstances, becomes incredibly radicalized. And he has made a firm commitment. That's where we leave him at the end of season 1. When we come back for season 2, he's a leader now, and he's involved.
MARTÍNEZ: There's an early - a scene in an early episode where Andor is talking to a frightened young woman who's just starting out as a rebel. And one thing that Cassian says to encourage her is that, you are coming home to yourself.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ANDOR")
= LUNA: (As Cassian Andor) The Empire cannot win. You'll never feel right unless you're doing what you can to stop them. You're coming home to yourself.
MARTÍNEZ: What qualities is he showing us in this moment?
GILROY: It's really an important scene. It's a young woman who is about to betray a facility that she works on behalf of the rebellion, and her whole life is going to change completely. She'll be on the run for the rest of her life. And we know from season 1 just the incredible sort of Stations of the Cross that Cassian Andor has been through to get where he is, and now it's a year later. And when he's speaking to her, he's become an inspirational advocate for the rebellion. He's also reminding himself, I think, of this terrifying thing that he's about to do and how important it is. She says, you know, if I die tonight, was it worth it? And he says, you're at home with yourself. You're at peace with yourself. You know that the Empire cannot win. You know that this is something you have to do. You'll always be dissonant with yourself. So it was a really cool way to come back and start the show and say, oh, my God - look how different he is from where we left him. Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: 'Cause one of the other ways I was kind of looking at this scene - I saw it that way first, right? And then I thought about it, and I went back to look at it again. And I thought, well, you know, Cassian is a leader in this, right? So...
GILROY: Oh, yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...I kind of thought of it as, like, well, you know, Cassian maybe is sensing fear in this woman, but he's got to get her through this because he needs her to do stuff to get the goal done. So on the flip side, I mean, would it be fair to call Cassian in that moment manipulative, because he's got a goal and he needs to get her through this thing?
GILROY: Well, yeah. I mean, you're - now you're making me very, very happy because every scene should do all those things that you're talking about. Yeah, I mean, there's a part of him that's like, I got to get this done. And he's been trained by Stellan Skarsgard, who is a revolutionary accelerationist. He's been building a rebel network, and...
MARTÍNEZ: And Luthen Rael - that's his character's name. Luthen Rael.
GILROY: Luthen Rael, yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: And he's the one who's recruited Cassian in the beginning of the show.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: And he is nothing if not clear about the fact that the ends justify the means. He would very much say anything to any of his people to get them to do what they need. Cassian Andor is a much more fully realized, empathetic and soulful character, so the tension of what you're talking about is cool. That tension is going to be a lot of food for this second season. One of the problems for Luthen Rael is if you've - basically been building a startup company in his garage. If you've been building up a...
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: ...Revolution in your garage - right?...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: ...How do you go public?
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: How do you take secrecy out into the world? I mean, how do you play with others? How do you manage your people without driving them crazy? He gives a big speech in episode 10 of season 1 where he reveals quite openly the sacrifices that he has made, and they are total.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ANDOR")
STELLAN SKARSGARD: (As Luthen Rael) I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see.
GILROY: Not everybody can make that commitment.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: Not everybody wants to make that commitment, and not everybody works at their best with that as the rules.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. You know what "Andor" does for me sometimes is that it gives, for me, the Rebel Alliance kind of a more Earth-like connection to rebellions that have happened on Earth - here in our real history - and maybe understanding their purpose and what they're fighting for and also weighing the cost of fighting oppression, fascism. So, I mean, how much does the real world's history go into your depictions of war and revolution in "Andor"?
GILROY: Oh, utterly and completely. And I - like probably many people listening, I mean, I'm a history freak. I've spent an incredible amount of time reading about revolutions and studying history. You know, in an idiot kind of way, a dinner table kind of way...
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: ...But really fascinated with it.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: And all of a sudden, here was an opportunity. I can cherry-pick through 6,000 years of history. I mean, it is it the Roman revolution? Is it the English Revolution? Is it the Russian Revolution? Is it the American Revolution? All the things I know about the Haitian Revolution. I mean, is it Thomas Paine? Is it Toussaint Louverture? Is it Trotsky? Is it - all of the things that I've accumulated that I - you know, you're not going to get those into a rom-com. You're not going to get them into an espionage.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: You're not going to get them into a Bourne movie. As much as anything, it's why I'm there.
MARTÍNEZ: But one of the things you mentioned there - so I read an interview you did with SFX magazine and that with the success of "Andor," you're kind of hoping - at least, that's what you told the magazine - that you hope it might convince Lucasfilm to maybe break more ground with the "Star Wars" story. A three-camera sitcom, a horror film or even a courtroom drama. I mean, what are you thinking about here? I mean, what - I mean, how...
(LAUGHTER)
GILROY: All right. All right. Here's what I've learned. You know how you can't really do irony in print?
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: Like, you really get in trouble.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, no, no.
GILROY: If you try to do irony in print, you get burned. You can't really riff on "Star Wars."
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: The Star Wars community is really hardcore, so riffing is not, like - that's an old conversation. It is the first thing I asked Kathy Kennedy in the very first blush after "Rogue One," when everything seemed possible - what can we do? And I was like, well, what can you do? Could you do a courtroom drama? That would be...
MARTÍNEZ: Right.
GILROY: ...Really fascinating to me.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GILROY: And a horror movie - I think they might be even working on something like that. The three-camera show, I'm riffing, and I took...
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: ...Like, they're...
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: ...You don't riff on "Star Wars."
MARTÍNEZ: Well, Tony, I'm still going to hold out hope for the three-camera sitcom offshoot of "Andor."
GILROY: I will come here first. I will definitely come to NPR and announce that.
MARTÍNEZ: Something like "Curb Your Rebellion" or something like that? I don't know. Something.
GILROY: Oh, my God, "Curb Your Rebellion."
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
GILROY: That's right. Oh, my God.
MARTÍNEZ: Tony Gilroy is the creator and executive producer of the series "Andor," a "Star Wars" story, on Disney+. Tony, thanks.
GILROY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF NICHOLAS BRITELL'S "ANDOR (MAIN TITLE THEME) - EPISODE 1") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
