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Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy has opened up about how the French revolution influenced the hit Star Wars series.
The critically acclaimed Disney+ show follows its namesake, Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), and brings viewers up to speed on why the once indifferent drifter, previously seen in 2017’s Rogue One, came to join the uprising against the Galactic Empire.
Season two began in April with three new episodes being released every week. In the most recent instalments, fans were treated to some of the most tense and dramatic storytelling seen in the history of the franchise, with viewers calling this latest batch of episodes some of the “greatest television of all time”.
The episodes revolve largely around the fate of the planet of Ghorman and its rebels inhabitants as they stand up to the tyranny of the Empire.
Like George Lucas’s original trilogy of films, released in 1977, 1980, and 1983, much of Andor makes reference to moments from history such as the Vietnam war and the French and Russian revolutions.
Speaking to The Times, Gilroy said that he used his knowledge and interest in history to flesh out the storylines of his series.
“I have 1,500 pages to write,” the director said. “I could do a novel. But the mandate was to take this five-year tranche of Star Wars history, where there’s a revolution boiling. Who is ever going to ask me to do anything like this again?
“So all the crap I studied my whole life, my bedtime history reading and podcasts? That stuff fascinates me and here’s an opportunity to use it on this huge canvas. I want to drop the mic on revolutions.”
The aesthetic of Ghorman resistance, for example, draws upon imagery from the French Revolution and France’s opposition to the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Speaking in an featurette on Disney+ titled Andor: Declassified, Gilroy said he hired French actors to portray most of the planet's residents, noting that the French Resistance “is one that we're completely sympathetic with, to begin with”.
In the same video, Richard Sammel, a German actor who plays Carro Rylanz, the leader of the Ghorman resistance, says that the language spoken on the planet, Ghor, was invented using French phonetics. “They ended up creating [it] word by word, a whole vocabulary,” explained the 64-year-old.
During an interview with Le Monde, Gilroy explained that once the cast was finalised they began to live together in order to create a more authentic sense of community. “We needed a language and to know how it would sound in a French mouth,” he said.
“Once we had that, we started casting. Thierry Godard, Richard Sammel and the French contingent lived together, forming a community. What happens off-screen works on-screen. After a while, they were able to improvise in the invented language.”
A national anthem for Ghorman was written with composer Nicholas Britell.
Andor continues to receive rave reviews from critics. Season two debuted with an impressive 99 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes – an impressive score, which at the time of writing has dropped only slightly to 97 per cent, but is still high when compared to other Star Wars titles.
For comparison, Episode IV – A New Hope and Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back have 94 per cent each, while Episode VI – Return of the Jedi has a lower score of 82 per cent.
Andor’s final three episodes will premiere on 13 May.
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