← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:09]
A
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. The Emmy nominated series Andor is set in the Star wars universe, but it's not the one of Darth Vader, the Force or Baby Yoda. It tells the story of a man named Cassian Andor, a thief who falls in with an insurgent group fighting against the galaxy's authoritarian empire. Andor is set in a galaxy far, far away. But this is not a space opera. It's a look at how fighting fascism requires total sacrifice. Earlier this year, while my WNYC colleague Tiffany Hansen was guest hosting all of it, we talked with Andor's creator, Tony Gilroy, and actor Stellan Skarsgrd, who plays Luthen, the revolutionary who brings Cassian into the fold of the resistance. Tiffany asked Gilroy to put the story of Andor into the broader context of the Star wars universe.
- [01:05]
B
Andor takes has a five year tranche of very specific history that leads into the film Rogue One, which leads directly into the first Star wars film. So it's, it is a prequel about a. It's a prequel of a prequel. It's a. It's a centered on the five years of Cassian Andor, who will be the sort of spy warrior leader of the mission in Rogue One and will ultimately sacrifice himself to. To get the plans for the Death Star. And it is the five years, as you said, he starts as a thief and it's the five years that take him up until that. The moment of Rogue One, our final scene is in the show. No spoiler here. We've been saying it for a long time. The final scene will be leading you directly into the opening of Rogue One.
- [02:02]
C
Speaking of prequels, I have for you, Tony, a sort of general question about it, which is prequels seem sort of predestined in that, as you said, you know where you're going to end up. You're gonna end up, you know, at this particular scene. And I wonder if that feels like a constraint to you.
- [02:25]
B
I'm going to give you an answer that I've been giving for a while. You know, the suspension of disbelief is baked into us. I think as animals, we all know we're going to die. And we get up every morning and we do things and we move forward. There seems to be some really potent ability that we have to be in that kind of denial. Why will you watch a movie at a second time or a third time? Why will you do anything where you know the outcome? Why is why and how? And pulling understanding from that seems to be something that doesn't lose its potency by knowing the ending.
- [03:06]
C
What did you find so compelling about Andor's story arc?
- [03:14]
B
The canvas, the size of the canvas. I've been a screenwriter for a very long time, and, you know, the life of a screenwriter is very much dictated by the number 130 or 125. Your eye is always in the right hand corner. You've got so little real estate to deal with. You're always. You're always up against the page and the clock. And this was kind of a. The equivalent of being a short story writer for your entire life and all of a sudden being offered the chance to write a giant, a gigantic Russian novel, in effect. And so the, the scale of the canvas, the, the. The scale of the resources and the topic. I've been an amateur, you know, dinner table, bedtime historian buff, my whole life. I've been reading all about it, and I've been. And I spent a lot of time reading about revolutions over the years. And you accumulate all this knowledge and you don't have any place to use it. All of a sudden there was this people saying, you know, we'll give you 1500 pages to play with and 2500 people at Pinewood and we'll let you run. And it's a story about revolution and how much can you talk about that? And that's for all the reasons not to do the project. Those were so compelling, it was impossible to. Not to not get involved.
- [04:32]
C
This is the Star wars universe. There are many, many people who have, speaking of doing a lot of reading, who have encyclopedic knowledge of the Star wars universe that I do not have people that can spew out the number of, you know, languages spoke and planets mentioned and worlds dived into and not dived into. And so I'm wondering, Stellan, how did you, or did you go into the entirety of the Star wars canon and say, all right, I need to learn some of this?
- [05:10]
D
Well, I've been in the Star wars canon since 1977, when my first son started watching it. And I've been watching it through the decades with eight kids. So I have it up to my ears. But this was something else. This was really interesting because it not only because, as Tony says, it's written from a historical perspective, in a way, it's the real revolutions. It's real oppression, and it's real words, worlds. I mean, if you see at Luke how Hal, who's made the scenography for this show, all the worlds are tangible. I don't Say spoiler, but you've seen by now Mina Rao, the rye, that yellow rye planet, and there are people living on them and they're. There are cultures, different cultures. It's an amazing world.
- [06:26]
C
I was one of Those kids in 1977, standing in line with my cousin, waiting to see the film, the first one that came out. And it blew my mind. It 100% blew my mind. And I knew that it was going to change. It changed me, and I knew it was going to change a lot of things. Did you have that sense at the time, Stella?
- [06:48]
D
I don't know. I was very busy with changing diapers.
- [06:54]
C
How about you?
- [06:54]
D
But I watched it and I saw. Wow. I'd never seen anything like it in that sense. I mean, the only science fiction of any value I've seen before that was 2001 by Kubrick. So this was a continuation in one way.
- [07:13]
C
And you, Tony, taking you back to.
- [07:16]
B
Yeah, I mean, I saw it in 77 in Boston. I was, I don't know, 18, 19. I mean, the most memorable thing was what an event it was. You know, it was really. I can. You can remember the films that were events in your life. I mean, it's like it was. It wasn't just going to the movie. It was. It was a thing like going.
- [07:33]
D
When.
- [07:34]
B
You know, going to see Apocalypse now at the Ziegfeld, when they put the speakers in and Avatar, it was like a. It had an extra. It had an extra Halo on it. That was. That was very exciting. No secret. I. In the. In the. In the subsequent years, I mean, I followed along. I watched Empire Strikes Back and saw some. Some of the films, but I wasn't a. I wasn't an aficionado of it at all.
- [08:03]
C
And how much did you. How much did you dig into the canon before this?
- [08:08]
B
I had my tiptoe in, was I worked on a movie called. I worked on Rogue One. I came into one as a. As a. As a sort of clinician, as a doctor. And so very different experience. Wasn't, you know, not emotionally involved, and it wasn't. Wasn't mine. But I spent 10 months there and got to know the world. And if you. The easiest way to think about it is if you think about it as the Vatican, really, and it has. There's a curia and there are people that keep canon. There are all kinds of levels of canon within. Within the Star wars world, and they're very difficult to sift between. Between that. I mean, literally, there's five, six, seven different levels of canon, cartoons and books. And the movies and the, and, and there is a curia there. There's actually Pablo Hidalgo is the sort of keeper of the keys there at Lucasfilm. And so if you have a question there about, about the veracity of something or the, the, the logic of it, he can answer it or tell you that you're free to make something up. And I learned everything I needed to know to sort of tend the garden of the five years that I was given. I have a five year period that I know a lot about and I know a lot about the calendar in there. I know a lot about the, the ins and outs and it's a very potent, a very very, a very exciting five years because it's the, it's, it's, it's the rise of the authoritarianism. It's the, it's the rise of a rebellion in a whole bunch of different pockets around the galaxy. And there are certain key beats in there that are, that are helpful to organize it, but that's. I'm an expert on those five years.
- [09:51]
C
And I want to get, I want to get into some of the specifics with you about your character here in a second, Stellan, but just one last question, Tony, about the, about these folks that know so Star wars that live and breathe this. Do you feel the weight of their expectation on you?
- [10:07]
B
I know a lot about them. I learned a lot about it on, on after Rogue. I mean you, you, you, you ignore them at your peril. I mean the, the really interesting thing about the, the super passionate Star wars community is number one, they're the reason we can make the show. I mean the, the fact that, that, that deep passion that, that it's sort of the down payment on the, on the, on the ability to, to, to, to mount a show of this scale, to know that that audience is going to be there. But they're not a monolithic viewpoint within, within the community. There are an incredible variety of subsets. So yeah, I could. We, we could talk for hours about the Star wars community and their passion. I will say that, that, you know, the one thing, the reason that Stella and I have been on the road so hard and the reason we're doing things like this is we. One of the really most difficult things we're trying to do is trying to get people who Star wars averse. You know, there's a lot of people who, and we're trying to let people know that.
- [11:01]
C
Right.
- [11:01]
B
The bin where Star wars as we are.
- [11:03]
C
Yeah.
- [11:03]
B
Yeah. I mean we don't, you don't have to know Anything about Star wars to watch our show at all. You could start at the beginning, and there's. The show is designed to that purpose. That one could come in and really along the way, it's been gratifying to pick up an audience that doesn't really have any. Doesn't come with a handbook. You don't need a. Yeah, you don't need. You don't need to know much to start.
- [11:27]
C
Well, Stellan, doesn't that just speak? We'll. We'll talk like he's not in the room here. But doesn't that just speak to Tony's genius in creating this story?
- [11:34]
D
Yeah, I mean, it's.
- [11:36]
B
It's.
- [11:37]
D
He's done an incredible work. I mean, it's. It's.
- [11:43]
B
It's.
- [11:43]
D
It's. It's full of blood and life, and it's full of. He says sometimes Tony says that it's not about now. You could drop it down anytime in the last 6,000 years of human experience, and it would be up to date. And it's true. And it has all the nuances of political nuances, and it's a great job. But it's also made that all the characters multidimensional and very mysteriously. He doesn't explain the characters. He.
- [12:20]
C
Yeah. I want to ask you about your character, because they're speaking of not explaining characters. There's not a lot of backstory given about your character.
- [12:29]
D
No, you don't need it.
- [12:31]
C
Do you need it?
- [12:32]
D
No, I actually hate it.
- [12:35]
C
Why?
- [12:35]
D
Because if you. I mean, when somebody gives me a backstory that is not on the page. If the backstory is on the page, it's one thing, but if it's not on the page, you immediately start to limit yourself. You're trapped by what's already written. And I think, you know, one of the worst thing an actor can say, I think is my character wouldn't do that because I immediately say, how do you know? Because it's. Man is a mystery.
- [13:11]
C
Well, Right. I was thinking about backstory and thinking, let's pretend some. I gave you my backstory and told you to play me. You. You might not come up with anything that looks like me or acts like me or talks like me, but it has my backstory. So it is limiting and also not limiting, I guess. Right.
- [13:30]
D
Yeah. Well, I've done a couple of sort of real people that has existed, like Wallenberg, the man who saved a lot of Jews in the Second World War, and a couple of painters. And the thing is, you can never. In a film, you can't show even an ounce of who they are. So what you do is that you have to give a. You have to give your impression. It's a special, very, very subjective impression of it. Then it works, and it has to be totally free from. You throw out the real things. I mean, if you do it like, you know, he lived there, and then he moved there, and then he moved there, then this becomes sort of a school play.
- [14:30]
C
Yeah. Tony, what's the benefit of not giving your actors 10 pages of backstory?
- [14:37]
B
If an actor comes and look, we're doing something in the show where we're jumping a year ahead every three episodes, and there's some. There's an incredible amount of blank space. There are places where if actors want to know what. What's happened, then. Then you help them out, and you fill that in if it's going to help them do something. I think the most important thing about what you're talking about is. And you asked the question in a really cool way, if you just gave me the backstory, would I know how to play you? What is increasingly fascinating to me, what am I? I'm a architect of human behavior. Right? I mean, that's. It's a behavior job. Is everyone has chaos within them. You know, everyone is confusing. There's chaos within us all. And that may be. It may be overwhelming. It may be hidden in the background. It may be. It may be someone's friend. But the loss of that chaos is the death of life on film, I think. I think the characters really need to be able to surprise you constantly. They want to feel inevitable, but they want to be surprising. And I'm always leery of I'll go with an actor as far as they want to go, whatever they need. You want me to tie your shoes? I'll tie your shoes. But my natural default is to. Is to. Is to just let you do your work.
- [16:08]
D
You never tied my shoes.
- [16:09]
C
I know.
- [16:09]
B
I was gonna say I never tied your shoes. You know what? We still have time.
- [16:14]
C
There's time. There's always time. Okay, Jen, So I'm gonna interrupt here with our listeners who have been chiming in here. We got a text that says love and or high production value stories are out of this world.
- [16:25]
D
Good.
- [16:26]
C
Even the evil empire is layered and humanized. So interesting. Love, Stellan Skarsgrd. Just have to share that we named our son Stellan because it. Because it looked good in the credits of Chernobyl. Definitely my favorite Skarsgard. I think it says something that people have a favorite Skarsgard.
- [16:46]
B
First of all, really, there's a lot to choose from.
- [16:48]
C
There are a lot to choose from. As Stellan has mentioned and will always say that the skarsgrd in the room is my favorite. Thanks Tony Gilroy for giving us one of the best written series ever. Andor is smart, suspenseful, timely, inspiring. Stellan is an amazing actor. He gives Luthen real gravitas and exposes the high stakes of the story. Those speeches are epic. And let's get back to that speech maybe and hear a little bit of it.
- [17:16]
D
I yearn to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost. And by the time I look down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? 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. Now the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice?
- [17:52]
B
Everything thing.
- [17:56]
C
Stellan. Sacrificing everything doesn't necessarily mean there is no hope though.
- [18:02]
D
No, I mean, of course there's hope. There's. They all hope. They would stop immediately if they didn't hope. It's revolution is full of hope.
- [18:17]
C
Tony. I'm wondering. You mentioned that. Or maybe it was you, Stalin, that said you could drop this anywhere in 6,000 years of history. Who said that? One of his.
- [18:26]
D
Tony Gilroy said.
- [18:27]
C
It's Tony Gilroy. So that you repeated.
- [18:29]
B
He just stole my talking point.
- [18:31]
D
I stole it.
- [18:32]
C
I've already forgotten who said it. All right, I'll take credit for it then. I'll do it. So if you can, if that's the case, why does it feel so timely to me?
- [18:44]
B
I think that's just so. I think we. I think we narcissistically always think that we live in, you know, some brand new moment and everything is fresh. I think the really. The really sorry truth is that it's sort of a sort of rinse and repeat cycle. Look, the. The show was written. You know, the digestive system of making a show this big is the inception is a long time before the delivery. So a lot of this is written and built time ago. We were. The strikes held us up. We were supposed to come out last year. There's no way that you could sort of play pin the tail on the calendar and try to time your show to have it be of the moment. I think that the. I'm hoping that, you know, you're Trying to always do something that's timeless and classic, that people can come back and watch again and again and again. That's really a big thing for me, is to try to make stuff that's not disposable, that has a shelf life. And when you're doing that, one of the unanticipated things that came along with this, I really feel that we've. There is something timeless about this. It really is. You can. I mean, because I can pull comps all the way through history of things I'm using in the show to build it. There's all kinds of different things I'm using from stuff I've read about, and they're all over the. They're all over. They're all over the last couple thousand years. So it's a complicated answer, but I just think that we underestimate how. How ordinary our situation is.
- [20:21]
C
I think you mentioned you're, you know, you study human nature, so maybe speculate why it is that we look for ourselves in what we watch. I look for my. I look for my. I identify. I pick out little pieces of people and characters and, you know, moments in. In a show. And I think, oh, yeah, I get that. I get that. Or I could do that. I look at Stella's character and I think I could get up there and say that I could be as inspiring as that. You know, give me a drink. I could go do it. What is it about us that. That we have that. Do we have to do that?
- [21:05]
B
Well, you. It's such a fundamental question. I mean, it's the. It's. It. The power of narrative and the origin of it and, and how it. I mean, again, I'm going very basic here, but what evolutionary need do we have for narrative? It must be something very, very powerful. We all feel the same way. I mean, I think we. We. We're trying to make understanding, obviously. I mean, why do we have religion? We're trying to figure out what's going to happen to us when we die. We're trying to figure out what our. What we're doing here. I suppose narrative, once you've got food and water and warmth, you know, you're trying to figure out. The next thing. You're trying to figure out, what am I supposed to do with these things? It's such a fundamental question. I'm not. I think you could probably have some. I'm sure there are people that have studied the.
- [21:55]
C
Somebody's written a dissertation on that.
- [21:56]
B
I'm sure somebody has many of them. I made a Living off of it. Stella and I have fed our families off of it.
- [22:03]
D
Yeah. And.
- [22:06]
B
It'S a little late to find out why at this point, but. Yeah, thank God that that exists. Thank God. People need stories.
- [22:13]
C
Yeah. Stellan, let's get back to your character. He Luthen, when he's. He's running a business, he's wooing clients, he's attending events, he's sort of a shapeshifter. And I'm just curious how it was to play a singular character who is, you know, modulating himself through these different roles and if that opened up something interesting for you.
- [22:39]
D
Well, in a way. I mean, I come from a theater. I've done. I've done four different characters in the Shakespeare play. So you change character faster than you change your wardrobe. So I'm not. There's nothing new in that for me. I mean, I don't have to spend three weeks to get into character each time because that would be.
- [23:03]
C
Yeah, that would be.
- [23:05]
D
But I was of course fascinated by it in a very superficial way. I liked this guy and unfortunately I have such a bald head, so I had to have two wigs. So even the one that wasn't a wig, I had to have a wig. So that was very funny.
- [23:29]
C
But don't we all kind of do that? I mean, the person that you're seeing in front of you right now is not the person that's going to be sitting on my couch tonight night.
- [23:36]
D
I know that.
- [23:38]
C
So we all sort of.
- [23:40]
D
And I'm not gonna be sitting on your couch either.
- [23:42]
C
I hope not. You'll be disappointed, believe me. But we all sort of do that, right? I mean, so I guess, I don't know, maybe this is a question for you, Tony. How do you maintain the essence of that character as they move through? I mean, you'll see Tiffany when she's on the couch and when she's in front of the microphone. You'll see Luthen when he's has all.
- [24:04]
B
For him it's life and death. I mean, his character has two very, very specific, different identities. There's the. There's the. There's the revolutionary underground, really organizer. I mean, he's spent 15 years sort of sub rosa funding all kinds of various groups and building up relationships and scouting talent all around the galaxy, all under the COVID He runs a gallery, an antiquities gallery basically in Coruscant in Rome, in New York. A very high end antiques gallery. And he has a totally different identity there. And if you figure out who I am sitting on the couch, then it doesn't cost me very much, but for him, it's life and death. And one of the things that really happens in this season, too, is that the difficulty of maintaining, the difficulty of having revolution go loud and large when your business is secrecy is very, very difficult. And Stellan does an amazing job this season of watching a character who you really felt really had their act together in season one and really was on top of everything. Watching him over the next four years, as the revolution comes together and as his position becomes more difficult to maintain, you watch him really begin to degrade under the. Just the inevitable pressure of that.
- [25:43]
C
Tony, I'm going to get a little meta on you and talk about, well, as if I haven't already, but talk about good versus evil in this series more writ large in terms of how we process good versus evil. It's not a stark. It's not here in the series and it's not in life, a stark contrast. There are shades and people are complicated. And I'm wondering if that makes it more interesting for you as a writer.
- [26:19]
B
I, I just, I don't have any other way of doing it. I have. I have to inhabit every single one of them. I have to believe in every one of them. When you're with them, they all have a point of view. They all have, you know, and our show really is, I think, saying as much as anything that it's, it's. There are. There are large movements and particularly, particularly think about the empire and, and which seems in most cases like just a really evil, monolithic bunch of people in white suits killing people and taking things over. But within that, it's, in the end, it's people worrying about their office, it's worrying about their territory, it's worrying about their boss, it's worrying about all their various insecurities now, the things that have led them there and their ability to continue to do things that maybe that are. That are vile and horrible. That's a pain threshold. But everybody has to be interesting to me and everybody has to have a point of view. In the end. I do believe in good and evil, but you can't write them that way. You can't build it like that.
- [27:26]
A
That was Tony Gilroy and Stellan Skarsgrd, respectively, the creator and star of Andor, which is nominated in 14 categories at this year's Emmys. And that is all of it for this hour. We'll have more critically acclaimed TV for you in a bit, including the second season of Severance, whose 27 Emmy nominations make it the leader of the pack this year. Plus hear about the drama series Adolescence that's coming up next on all of it.
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D
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