‘Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy on the Series Finale, Cassian’s [SPOILER], the Show’s ‘Controversial’ Set and His Next Film With Oscar Isaac
"Andor" creator Tony Gilroy explains the series finale, including his thinking behind the final image, his future with "Star Wars," and his film with Oscar Isaac.
![‘Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy on the Series Finale, Cassian’s [SPOILER], the Show’s ‘Controversial’ Set and His Next Film With Oscar Isaac](https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Cassian-Andor-finale.png?w=1000&h=563&crop=1)
SPOILER ALERT: This story includes spoilers for the “Star Wars” series “Andor” and feature film “Rogue One,” both currently streaming on Disney+.
From its inception, “Andor” was designed by creator Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton,” the “Bourne” franchise) to chronicle what leads rebel spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) up to the events of the 2016 “Star Wars” feature film “Rogue One,” which Gilroy co-wrote. In that film, Cassian learns about a high-ranking Imperial officer, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), leaking a message to his daughter, Jyn (Felicity Jones), about the existence of a top secret super-weapon, aka the Death Star. Knowing he had to connect the numerous storytelling plot strands from “Andor” into the movie’s complicated plot made Gilroy anxious for years. It turns out, he needn’t have worried. “That shit laid down really clean,” he tells Variety with a grin. “It presented itself without the incredible amount of effort that was anticipated.”
The final three episodes take place in the days right before the story of “Rogue One” begins. In Episode 10, “Make It Stop,” the ruthless Rebellion mastermind Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) learns from his mole in the Empire about the existence of the Death Star and of Galen Erso. He immediately tells his assistant, Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), about what he’s learned and returns to his gallery to destroy the radio that connects them with rebel network. At that same moment, Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) — the Imperial Security Bureau officer who’s relentlessly hunted for Luthen over the course of the series — arrives on Luthen’s doorstep to arrest him. When Luthen attempts suicide, Dedra to races him to a hospital to keep him alive, which forces Kleya to infiltrate the hospital and take Luthen off of life support to prevent the Empire from torturing him for information on the Rebellion. Throughout the episode, director Alonso Ruizpalacios and writer Tom Bissell weave in flashbacks that establish how Luthen first came upon Kleya as a young child and took her in as a kind of adopted daughter, and then how they helped each other build up the insurrection against the Empire.
Popular on VarietyThe next episode, “Who Else Knows?,” revolves around Cassian’s efforts to rescue Kleya from Coruscant as the Empire desperately tries to capture her, and everyone zeroes in on the dilapidated safe house where she’s holed up. That rescue concludes in the finale, “Jedha, Kyber, Erso,” after which Cassian delivers Kleya’s intelligence about the Death Star to a highly skeptical Alliance Council, headed by Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly). As the Council deliberates, Cassian holes up in his home on the rebel base on Yavin and reminisces with fellow spy, Vel Martha (Faye Marsay), about their past missions and fallen compatriots, including Luthen. The Council finally decides to allow Cassian to investigate further about Galen Erso, and he strides across the base, passing soldiers who later appear in “Rogue One,” before he steps inside his starship and takes off with his droid, K-2S0 (Alan Tudyk).
It’s a bittersweet sequence, given that Cassian ultimately dies at the end of “Rogue One,” along with Jyn (who is pointedly not a romantic interest), in order to get the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. In an in-depth conversation with Variety about the final episodes of “Andor,” Gilroy explains why he decided to have the final scene reveal that Cassian’s partner Bix (Adria Arjona) — who left Cassian a year earlier, in Episode 9, because she believed his destiny belonged with the Rebellion — has since given birth to their child. He also talked about what part of Episode 10 was “controversial,” his future with franchise storytelling, and his hopes for his next feature film as a writer-director, an indie starring (fellow “Star Wars” alum) Oscar Isaac.
Tony Gilroy on the set of Season 2 of “Andor.” Des Willie / LucasfilmWell, Episode 10 is its own thing, really, a special temple, and it’ll be interesting to see how it lands with people. But 11 and 12, when we’re really delivering the pizza, I was pleasantly shocked as we started to work out the cause and effect of what happened, and who betrayed who, and who knows what, and how do we get to Galen Erso. That shit laid down really clean. It presented itself without the incredible amount of effort that was anticipated. That’s really helpful, because what we wanted to do in 12 was to feel the time on the characters that you cared about that are still there, and there’s quite a few of them that are. When we came to mix 12, we all were really emotionally jacked up in a way that we hadn’t expected, because you’ve been with all these characters, and oh my God, what they’ve been through. I hope it will land that way for people, that you really do feel the epic weight of what they’ve been through.
I wasn’t worried about driving 12. It’s a very different energy. I remember talking to Tom Bissell, who did all the early drafts on that. It’s just like, “Man, do not try to push this through. Let’s just make sure it makes sense. And then let the camera work and let these actors work.” We didn’t want to kick it, no.
I mean, it’s not unexciting, we’re not sitting around and knitting or anything. But it’s time for them to have a toast. The scene between Vel and Cassian to me is just worth its weight in gold. I normally like to keep my foot on the gas all the way through. We try to really haul ass all the time. But I didn’t really want to have that speedometer on Episode 12.
Probably earlier than you think. I’m not exactly sure. But I know how grim “Rogue” is. I mean, I was there, and it’s pretty grim. We’re asking people to invest a lot of unhappiness along the way in this show. I just could not ever envision the possibility of not being hopeful. I know it’s a cheesy T-shirt kind of idea, but there has to be something hopeful. There has to be a candle. So I always had that in my back pocket. I’m not sure when I laid that out. I’m not sure if I was asking for more money or something at that point. I am sure it was a card that I played.
I don’t own it. Disney owns it. I mean, if I need an extra shooting day, it’s certainly going to turn somebody’s head and go, “Maybe it’s worth it to get an extra shooting day out of that, because look what they’re giving us.”
Sure! Why not? That’s what hope is, isn’t it? Its provenance was not mercenary. I’m sure at certain points it helped me out, but it wasn’t there for that purpose. I would’ve done it anyway. That does three things for me at the end. No. 1, it’s for anybody who is confused about Bix leaving Cassian in 9, because it’s a very sophisticated rationale for leaving. I mean, how do you react if you feel like you’re living with someone who has a destiny, and you might be confusing that destiny? That’s a pretty subtle thing. This underlines that and says, “Oh my God, she was pregnant when she was doing that.”
It makes his sacrifice in “Rogue” just that much more epically painful: the child he’ll never see, and all the missed opportunities and the rest of it.
And then it also lets me have hope at the end. It gives me an open door, as you say. And it’s not just an open door to a theme park. It’s an open door to a real feeling for the audience and some sort of empathetic closure.
Yeah. That’s obviously — you could do that. I could do that.
No, that’s not — I mean, look, I’ve gotten used to saying, “Never say never again.” But no, I think I did my thing here. That’s how I feel today.
No, I’m really cold blooded. I’ve never been that way. I’ve had other people talk about something like that. I don’t waste any energy unless I’m working on it, it’s weird.
When Stellan signed on at the very beginning, I agreed that he would only do two seasons. No matter what we were going to do, I would kill him in Season 2. And then as we started to talk about Luthen’s origin story, the one thing that he said, “I just don’t want it to be revenge.” I wrote a very elaborate backstory for him, and we talked about it, and it was kind of too ornate. It just fell off the truck.
And as Elizabeth Dulau emerged — she’s just absolutely amazing. That’s the great thing about these shows. You watch these actors bloom in front of you, and you go, “I’m writing for her. Let’s build that up.” So she wasn’t just going to be his apprentice anymore. She’s going to be this whole thing. Most importantly for me, I couldn’t have anybody misinterpret that relationship. I didn’t want anybody to ever think that there was anything romantic or strange between them. And I didn’t want anybody to come away from the show thinking that he’s manipulated this young girl into some line of thinking.
Fortunately Elizabeth had laid down a path of intensity, and just steel, all the way through. Her performance in Season 1 made that possible: “Wow, she’s driving the train.” As long as the directors understood it, and Stellan understood it, and she understood it, then we shaped the scenes to make sure that that’s confirmed. But that’s very delicate territory there. I anticipate some conversations about that. But I do believe that it’s collaborative and non-manipulative. I mean, that’s a very complicated issue you brought up. Did it strike you that way?
But he’s afraid of her all the time. You realize she’s the thing he’s most afraid of.
I know, it’s just her! We got to use all the “Bourne” stuff in there. That was a controversial set. We didn’t have any money to build it, and I think that the hospital set is the greatest set in the whole show for directors. If you’re a director and you look at what Alonso [Ruizpalacious] had, the sight lines in the hotel, and the geography, the way it lays out, oh my God. I love that episode, I love it.
Elizabeth Dulau and Stellan Skarsgård in Season 2 of “Andor.”Just because we needed money. “How much do you need? We’ll give you a hallway.” We’re like, “No, we need more.” [Production designer] Luke [Hall] did that on the cheap. Doesn’t look like it, but it is. Smoke and mirrors, man. Luke Hall, bow down.
I don’t know. I mean, I really, really, really don’t know. I think the practical way we made the show on the scale we made it, that might be more in jeopardy as a one-off. I’m not sure people are going to shoot in-camera as much. I think AI and volumetric filmmaking will get much more sophisticated. I don’t know whether anybody’s going to go do an old-school kind of show the way we made it, the scale of it. Man, you know better than I do.
It’ll also depend on, I guess, on how well it does, won’t it? What’s the motivator for our show? “Game of Thrones,” right? They say, “Got to have ‘Thrones.’ Everybody’s got to have a ‘Thrones.’” So people follow what happens. But I don’t really know, Adam. I have lost my predictive abilities.
My ambitions?
Here’s what it did for me. It saved me from movie jail. I had two huge movies shot out from under me before [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] came over. I was like, What the fuck is going on? Maybe my expiration date has hit. And this came along. So in that sense, I have a bigger audience [now]. I think I help the box office a little bit. So that’s a plus.
Also, I became a much, much better writer, shockingly, at this late stage in life, for a whole bunch of reasons. I was writing about subjects that were fascinating to me. I didn’t have to worry about the page count the way I normally do as a screenwriter. The writers on the show are crucial, but in the end, everything has to filter down and come off my desk. And everything that comes off my desk is getting shot, and I’m seeing it a month later, or three weeks later or tomorrow. And then I can look up today how people are reacting to [Episodes] 4, 5, and 6. My relationship with the audience is sharp. My understanding of what people can take and what they understand — I just became a better writer. That’s what I get out of it.
My ambition is to — if you saw the movie that I just wrote, it has nothing to do with this [subject]. I don’t want to be the revolution guy. After I did “Dolores Claiborne,” I was a woman’s writer. I did “The Cutting Edge,” I was a sports writer, rom-coms. After “Devil’s Advocate,” I had every Satanic script in town. “Bourne,” I’m a spy guy. I don’t want to be the revolution guy. I want to keep working, man. I mean, who doesn’t want to be Chris Nolan? I would love to be able to just say, “Hey, can I just have my green light and just give me my money and I’ll be responsible and go do it,” but I am not there. That’s the ambition. The ambition is to say, “Will I ever have a chance to do this again?” I don’t know.
Not yet. Not at all.
It’s about movie music. I was a musician when I was young. I really was serious about it for a while. I loved being in recording studios, and maybe I would have been a decent record producer, I don’t know. When we get to the scoring, it’s my happiest place. When we were out on “Rogue” on the Sony [scoring] stage, it’s the same feeling I had when we were touring law firms on “Devil’s Advocate.” I’m going, “There’s got to be a movie here.” So I came up with a movie about a symphonic cellist who returns to L.A. to do session work. The whole movie is told through the [music] cues — the cues trigger flashbacks over the last 20 years that tell you why he left and why he’s come back. It’s a movie that surfs on music.
I’ve had Oscar Isaac since October [as] my cellist. [“Andor” executive producer] Sanne Wohlenberg is producing with me, and [my brother] Johnny’s on it. We have a tax credit. We’re just trying to get over the last hump. Shoots in L.A. It’s really difficult to shoot in L.A., as everyone knows. And it’s about film scoring, which most of the people in your audience know is really like coral reefs, man. It’s just going away, and if it doesn’t get saved soon, it really will die completely. So there’s an incredible amount of people who want to help us get the movie made for a variety of reasons. But it also makes the movie very difficult to get made.
I don’t know. Right now, I want to make this other movie. I want to work on that scale. I learned a long time ago, and I know that it’s unusual, but I only do one thing at a time. I never book anything out in front of me. I don’t have a company. I don’t have stationery. I haven’t had an assistant in six months. My wife hates when I use this term, but it’s couture. I want to be couture. I want to sew every buttonhole. So I only keep one thing in front of me.
A bright shiny object is a bright shiny object, and if you get engaged in something and the timing is right, and the feeling is right, then you do it. I don’t need the money anymore the way I used to need the money. That was a motivating factor for many years. When that need subsides somewhat, you start to make different choices. But I always just do the one thing at a time. This is the one thing I want to do right now.
I’m becoming more and more fascinated with how other people make shows. The first time I came out on “Clayton,” I did a roundtable, and I realized that all the other people there were professional directors. They had only ever directed. I don’t think I said anything for the first half an hour because I was just listening to them. They all only knew how to direct the way they knew how to direct. I’d worked for 20 directors at that point. But none of them had ever seen anybody else do it.
As a showrunner, I feel like that. The only other person I ever saw was [“Andor” writer and “House of Cards” showrunner] Beau [Willimon]. I worked on “House of Cards” for two years, but I only went to the room a couple times and my job was kind of strange on that. I watched the David Chase documentary. I was just like, “This is so antithetical to what we did, and why and how we would do it.” So I’m really naively, stupidly fascinated with now how other people do it, because we made up our own crazy system that worked for us. I’m fascinated by that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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