Latest news with #MonMothma
Geek Feed
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Feed
Andor Creator Says The Clone Wars ‘Wasn't Even In His Radar'
Andor creator Tony Gilroy has always been frank about him not being the biggest fan of Star Wars despite his show being critically praised; and while everyone is making heads or tails on the connections to the how, Gilroy reveals that he wasn't even thinking of one of the monoliths of the fandom—the animated Clone Wars series. In a recent interview with a group of Star Wars Youtubers (via Star Wars Explained), Gilroy was asked about the connection of Andor —specifically Mon Mothma's speech—to The Clone Wars , and how it echoed the themes that George Lucas himself championed; to which Gilroy responded: 'Oh really? That's not on my radar, but yeah… fantastic.' The interview is actually pretty interesting with Gilroy himself saying that he also worked as a history teacher, which is why a lot of themes of revolution feel like they've been drawn from real life. Even the Ghor were made to sound French as an ode to IRL French revolutionaries. For now, it looks like Gilroy is taking a break from Star Wars , but he does leave the door open for future projects. ' I hope the lesson is let your freak flag fly and work your ass off… there's nothing you can take for granted.' We don't know if Star Wars is ever going to see another series like this, but with the critical reception and the viewing numbers to back it up, maybe Lucasfilm is going to think twice when it comes to making a choice between fresh new stories or nostalgia-baiting prequels (sorry Dave Filoni). For now, watch the complete Andor now streaming on Disney+.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Andor' star Genevieve O'Reilly on Mon Mothma's big speech and wedding dance: ‘Star Wars' always reaches for ‘the universal and the intimate'
Since Andor Season 2 is split into groups of three episodes, each taking place one year after the last, viewers see the characters in several different modes and periods of their lives. In particular, Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) plays quite a spectrum of emotions. In the first arc of the season, written by Andor creator Tony Gilroy, viewers see her navigate her daughter's wedding. It involves coaching her young daughter Leida (Bronte Carmichael) through bridal feelings and making covert political decisions with her fellow rebel leader Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård). 'It's such an extraordinary thing that Tony and the writers did, to allow for such an arc this season starting with that wedding,' O'Reilly tells Gold Derby. 'There was an exploration of politics within the family home in Season 1, especially with her husband, so it's personal and political all at once, but the fact that the writers gave time to complex, nuanced mother-daughter scenes and husband-wife scenes within this massive umbrella of Star Wars allows for such an exploration of this woman.' More from GoldDerby Reality TV roundtable panel: 'American Idol,' 'Queer Eye,' 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,' 'The Traitors' 'The Traitors' producer Sam Rees-Jones on the 'messiest group' ever and why the turret was pure 'chaos' 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' producer Jeff Jenkins on how Taylor is an 'absolute unscripted superstar' Ledia's marriage to the son of oligarch Davo Sculdun (Richard Dillane) was arranged by Mon's childhood friend Tay Kolma (Ben Miles) back in Season 2, to help cover up Mon's financing of the nascent Rebellion. But Tay didn't understand the full extent of Mon's political activities, and starts to have second thoughts about getting involved with rebels as the wedding looms. Mon believes they can pay 'a number' to assuage Tay. Still, Luthen knows otherwise, and arranges to have Tay discreetly killed offscreen before he can incriminate Mon — the kind of difficult choice that revolutionaries sometimes have to make. Mon gets to process all of her emotions about that, as well as the wedding, the Rebellion, and everything else, in a kinetic, instantly meme-able dance scene in the third episode of Season 2. 'There's that scene with Luthen where she tacitly agrees to her friend being murdered. So then the chaos that is within her emerges through this big dance number,' O'Reilly says. 'I'm able to wrestle Mon Mothma out of what we've seen before, and give her all of this humanity. I feel like we all see ourselves in that dance. At different times in our lives, we've all done that dance for many different reasons. It's something we can really connect to, because I recognize her in that moment. I recognize myself in that moment.' On the other end of the Andor spectrum, the third arc of Season 2 finally depicts a crucial moment in Star Wars lore when Mon Mothma publicly denounces the Ghorman Massacre and then flees the Senate before the Empire's stormtroopers can arrest and/or kill her. This event was hinted at in O'Reilly's previous appearance as Mon on the animated series Star Wars Rebels. Still, now viewers get to see and hear Mon's dramatic speech denouncing the Emperor and calling the Ghorman repression a 'genocide.' O'Reilly has been looking forward to playing that scene for years, and it helped her play the other aspects of Mon Mothma. 'It felt deeply important to me. I felt that that was the crux of who this woman really is within the 20-year arc that I have had within this woman,' O'Reilly says. 'I did know it was coming, so it was something I was very much looking forward to as a performer and as an actor, and for us to be able to see her voice have a massive impact and to see the courage it took to have that voice. We also see the complexity around speeches. You don't just stand and give a speech. What is the straw that breaks the camel's back before it? What happens to make you actually be willing to set fire to your life? How afraid are you in that moment? What words can you put together? Dan Gilroy wrote that episode, and I know Tony was working with him in it, but what they did to really carve an understanding of what it is to have to give a speech like that was very important to me.' O'Reilly continues, 'As an actor, it felt like the centerpiece of that woman, and perhaps because I knew that was the centerpiece, it allowed for me to work backwards. It allows for the dance sequence and the mother-daughter scenes. You can spread your wings a bit if you know where you're going.' Andor's depiction of the Ghorman Massacre and Mon's fiery speech denouncing it fills an essential gap in Star Wars lore. But there's more than just fictional world-building going on. By so thoroughly fleshing out Mon Mothma's character and her stakes, O'Reilly and the Gilroys help viewers see connections between her struggles and political crises in our real world. 'The narrative is really driven by the individual characters. And so when we come to that speech in episode nine, we understand her cost,' O'Reilly says. 'We understand that she's not just a senator standing and giving a speech, that she is all of these things: A wife, a mother, a friend, a confidante. You understand that there is a fragile human at the center of these stories, and it does allow for us to recognize ourselves in it.' O'Reilly continues, 'I think Star Wars is always reaching for the universal and the intimate at once. The very first story was about starfighters, but it was also about family.' Best of GoldDerby Reality TV roundtable panel: 'American Idol,' 'Queer Eye,' 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,' 'The Traitors' 'The Traitors' producer Sam Rees-Jones on the 'messiest group' ever and why the turret was pure 'chaos' 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' producer Jeff Jenkins on how Taylor is an 'absolute unscripted superstar' Click here to read the full article.
Gizmodo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Tony Gilroy Has Seen Your Mon Mothma Dance Remixes and Wants More
Star Wars fans love making the absurd out of the most dramatic moments of its saga, and transforming Mon Mothma's hypnotic wedding crashout into a dance-meme-turned-song-of-the-summer-candidate is just one such instance of that. Some creatives might bristle at their serious work being made light of, but Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy has another approach: let the people remix! 'I love it. Why not? It's fun,' Gilroy recently told Vanity Fair of the oodles of remixes, extensions, and memes that have come out of the scene. 'You'd have to be wrapped pretty tight to not want to do that.' While the climactic moment of Andor season 2's first act–as Mon wrestles with Luthen's demand that her old friend and financial aide, Tay Kolma, must be killed to stop him from betraying the nascent rebellion by getting into a trancelike dance state at her daughter's wedding bash–is one of the season's dramatic highs, the music that punctuates it all has become one of the show's breakout cultural moments. Itself a remix of the first season's similar club classic 'Niamos!', composer Brandon Robert's updated synth track keeps the crunchy techno vibes of Nicholas Britell's original, will incorporating elements of EDM and house music to create the perfect beat to have an existential crisis to. Lucasfilm has embraced the moment, from releasing the soundtrack, to hour-long extensions, to last week's release of the official single 'Niamos! (Chandrilan Club Mix). But both Gilroy and Roberts alike want them to go further: releasing the separate audio elements of the track so fans can more easily remix it themselves, and spread new versions of 'Niamos!' across the world much like it seemingly swept over the galaxy far, far away. 'I'm hoping that they're working out the legality of getting the stems out to, if not everybody, at least a certain number of DJs who they approve of, who can mess with it,' Gilroy noted. 'It really could be a gas.' 'It's always interesting to see what people do, but I think the most interesting thing would be to see what people do from scratch but using the musical material,' Roberts added. 'I bet there's going to be some very cool versions of it out there, much hipper than anything I could do.' There is something very thematically Andor about trying to make this happen, and make 'Niamos!' an anthem of the fandom as much as it is the show's. In our own Mon Mothma summer, we have friends everywhere–and they're ready to hit the dance floor.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Andor' star Genevieve O'Reilly on her unlikely two-decade Mon Mothma journey: ‘I've closed the circle on her'
Andor actress Genevieve O'Reilly's Star Wars journey has been longer and more circuitous than most actors in the franchise, but what a payoff she received. The ethereal Rebel leader Mon Mothma was originally portrayed by actress Caroline Blakiston in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Though her appearance lasted less than 30 seconds, the character quickly became an iconic part of Star Wars lore. O'Reilly later stepped into the role in her 20s for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith — a brief appearance as well, but one that laid the groundwork for her deeper involvement in the franchise later on. More from GoldDerby Tramell Tillman could make Emmy history as the first Black Best Drama Supporting Actor winner Kristen Kish dishes on Season 22 of 'Top Chef,' Emmys, and the show's global impact: 'It's all driven by the fans' Patricia Arquette's 'Severance' character talks like that because 'she thinks that's what power sounds like' Much to her surprise, O'Reilly returned to the franchise as Mon Mothma just over a decade later in a slightly more fleshed-out role for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, accompanied by turns voicing the character for the animated series Star Wars Rebels. But those brief stints were just the amuse bouche for the gourmet feast that awaited the actress as Mon Mothma moved to the head of the table for Andor. The Chandrilan senator was given a sweeping backstory loaded with all the gravitas, sacrifice and subterfuge one could expect of an emerging Rebel hero; meanwhile O'Reilly was given her own epic opus as an actress. Attending an FYC event for the Disney+ series at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills, O'Reilly joined Gold Derby to reflect on her wildly unexpected two-decade tour of duty in the Rebellion (which has also continued forward in Ahsoka), including the challenging moments that tested her commitment as much as her character's. Lucasfilm/Disney Gold Derby: Is it too soon to lobby for a Mon Mothma series? From the end of this show to the end of , there's a lot of potential story still in there for her. Genevieve O'Reilly: I bet! Would you be excited if the right call came to pick this character up yet again? I mean, do you know what? It's been such a gift of a surprise for me to come back — and back — and Andor has been revelatory for me in regard to this woman. So, always! If we could go further, I don't know if that's possible because of what Andor has achieved, it's just extraordinary. But yes. You've participated in a lot of different projects. What did that mean to you to of be a part of what may be a whole new direction for a certain type of film or series? I can only speak from my perspective to the writing, to Tony [Gilroy] and all those writers and what they achieved, in regard to a depth of character, the depth of interaction. And I think something that Season 2 really achieved was by jumping that year every three episodes it allowed for a real specificity of character, a real specificity of this moment and who this is, which allowed for kind of big swings — swings of character. So that was really interesting to me, that you didn't have to carry the audience with you from one moment to the next. You could drop in and just reveal something quite different. Did you have any unanswered questions about Mon Mothma at the end of this, or are you pretty satisfied with what you do understand about her? I remember something when I started this so long ago, that there was something in Caroline Blakiston's performance [in Return of the Jedi] that I was really curious about, and what that pain was at the center of her. And I was always seeking that. And I feel like at the end of Andor I've kind of closed the circle on her. I understand her pain. I understand that personal trauma and that personal relationship to sacrifice the Rebellion much more. Tell me about when you got that very first call to pick up this character all those years ago, what your reaction was then? And now, when you're become truly the custodian of that character after all this time and really been the one who got to play the things that deepened her and filled out her mythology. Can you compare and contrast those moments? There're three big moments for me, actually. The first one was just getting that role when I was a very young actor and just being wide-eyed and just it was so extraordinary to step onto those sets and be a tiny part of that. The real interesting moment for me was when they called me to ask me to do Rogue One, because that was 10 years later. So much had happened in that time. They didn't have to ring. They didn't have to ask me, do you know what I mean? They kind of could have reached out to anyone at that point and that felt special. So I thought, 'OK, maybe I have something to offer here.' And then when Tony rang in regard to Andor, I mean he's such an extraordinary writer. He had such a vision for the piece and he really wanted to allow space for her to have a proper story, to have story time, narrative time, rather than just be an expositional force, which she was previously. What was the most challenging but perhaps the most gratifying day of work on for you? Yeah, that was the speech. Mon's speech. It took a day and it was extraordinary and that was so important to me. It was so important to me. I felt it was the fulcrum of who she is, really the center. I thought that everything else makes sense if she can land that, it was a real gift that he gave to me and trusted me with and, yeah, I brought everything I could to it. And I'm sure, too, the dance. The dance is her transition — now she's . There's blood in her hands at that point. And being able to release her physically was just everything, because it is a lens into character. And we'd never seen her move, we'd never really seen her outside of that calm that she has. So to be able to expose that trauma, that chaos, physically was so wonderful. Yeah, revelatory, I hope, for the audience, and also for me as an actor. Best of GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
Gizmodo
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Full ‘Andor' Mon Mothma Club Mix Is Finally Here
It says a lot that even after we got the whole rest of Andor season 2, one moment that still stands out as one of the very best the series gave us is Mon Mothma's hypnotic, tragic, dance sequence at the end of season 2's first act. A lot of that is in the dramaturgical beauty of it all, to be sure. But a lot of it is also in that bangin' tune. Ever since 'Harvest' dropped, we have of course been able to join Mon in a little oontz-oontz crashout of our own with the release of Andor's official soundtrack, which includes the Chandrilan DJ-droid's remix of Niamos, the club classic of the galaxy far, far away as part of the piece titled 'Brasso', from composers Nicholas Brittell and Brandon Roberts. But, as good as 'Brasso' is, it does have that orchestral build up at the start that is part of the swelling, symphonic build up as the titular character sadly passes away in Cassian's arms. It's a beautiful little piece, sure, and there is something really compelling about the way the electronic bass begins to creep in throughout the build of the strings before it fully crashes into that crunchy interstellar techno. But when you just want to get that techno on loop, it's a little bit of a drag. Sure, you could listen to the hour-long extensions and whatnot, but it's not the same. And so as it considers its long, Emmy-campaign-driven goodbye, it appears that Andor has given us a final gift: the all killer, no filler 'Niamos! (Chandrilan Club Remix)'. And friends, it is glorious. The Chandrilan club mix is longer than the version we get on 'Brasso', even accounting for removing the orchestral segment that was part of that piece–there's new moments in there, like a bridge after that incredibly Mr. Worldwide-ian cry of Ni-a-mos! It's so good. But it's just nice that, even after it was already done and dusted, Andor was still willing to give one little treat in the form of the song of our summer.
