‘Andor’ Showrunner Tony Gilroy Describes the Collaborative Effort Required to Create the Critically Acclaimed Season Finale
In a new interview published by Vanity Fair, executive producer and showrunner of Andor, Tony Gilroy, explains how they filmed the show’s critically acclaimed season finale. Gilroy describes the process as being a collaborative effort with many moments not being in the original script. One of those improvised moments is the fan-favorite scene where the brick made of Maarva’s ashes is smashed on top of an Imperial officer.
Andor has a total of eight Emmy nominations, including “Outstanding Drama Series.” But the last episode itself, titled “Rix Road,” has attributed three of those eight nominations. The episode is nominated for “Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (One Hour),” “Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series,” and “Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.”
When coming up with the season finale, Tony Gilroy explains that he worked with many of the heads of the different departments, including Nicholas Britell, the show’s musical composer. He also explains how getting different ideas from multiple people is what makes the episode a success:
“I went to Nick [Britell] and we came up with seven to eight minutes of music. Then everybody else starts coming in, the art department, and the actors, and all these imaginative people. My management style would be to try to make everybody around me a filmmaker, you know? Make everybody invested. And then just take the best ideas that everybody has.
I’ve worked on so many shows where that’s not the case, and it just, it’s so limiting. There’s so many good ideas … The set decorations department starts inventing things that are just so beautiful as [production designer] Luke Hull keeps building the town [of Ferrix]. And then Michael Wilkinson’s wardrobe becomes a mini little caste system in the town. At some point I came up with the idea of their funeral rite, which is they put you into a brick. Bricks became such a big thing for us. It was a late idea.”
And while Gilroy wasn’t on set the day they shot the riot scene in the season finale, Gilroy admits one electrifying moment was unscripted. The scene where Brasso, Cassian Andor’s best friend, hits an officer on the head with the brick made of Maarva’s remains wasn’t Gilroy’s idea:
“I wasn’t there when they shot the riot sequence. But I’m watching dailies every day. When Brasso [actor Joplin Sibtain] swings that brick and he hits that dude, I don’t know if that’s on the page. That’s when the moviemaking takes off past the script. That Maarva could become a weapon of such energy is just from obsessive detailing. I remember being really surprised when I saw the tape and going, “Holy… look what they did!’”
Gilroy also explained the importance of Ferrix, Cassian’s home world in the story, and why he kept coming back to it. Part of the reason was simply logistics and so they could get as much use out of the set they had built:
“We spent so much money building Ferrix! It was important that if we were gonna really build it, we really had to use it. The mandate was, if we’re gonna blow this kind of money, you gotta really park there and do something with it. I don’t think it was clear to me when I started how much of a mirror Ferrix was going to be for Cassian’s journey itself. We started to realize that everything that’s happened to him has happened to Ferrix: the indifference, the go-along/get-along, pushing the issues aside.”
A second season of Andor was in production before it was halted due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. Season two of Andor is currently slated for release sometime in late 2024 for Disney Plus.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
