On the final day of filming for the 2016 sci-fi adventure Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Diego Luna officially said goodbye to his original character Cassian Andor, never expecting to get to play the Rebel Alliance intelligence agent again. Andor went on to become a fan favorite, thanks to his interplays with both Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and the amusingly droll droid K-2SO, voiced by Alan Tudyk. But those who know the ending of Rogue One understand that Cassian’s journey was finite… something the actor appreciated about his Star Wars gig at the time, and something he says is special about Andor.
Cassian Andor returns to our screens on September 21 when the limited series Andor arrives on the streaming service Disney+. Similar to Rogue One, Andor will be tackling a prequel story that aims to explain how Cassian (Diego Luna) came to join the Rebellion, and lead into where his story picks up in the 2016 Gareth Edwards feature film. But while speaking with CinemaBlend for an Andor press day, Luna admits that he was completely done with the character and the world when he agreed to take on Cassian in Rogue One, because he knew the ending was predicted. As he told us:
I said goodbye to the character, to the universe, to the experience, to everything. One thing that made sense to me was that I was coming to do a film. In the universe of Star Wars, but a film that had a beginning and an end. It was pitched as a standalone to me. This is it! You come, you do this, you’re in and out. You’re allowed to be different. You’re supposed to be different. But this is it, you know? … Everyone was asking me, ‘Oh, so you’re going to be there forever!’ And I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m doing this. That’s it.’
We know now that isn’t the case. Even though Diego Luna appreciated the fact that his Star Wars journey had a definitive end, a phone call that came a year later opened up the possibility of him exploring Cassian Andor’s backstory. And we will start to see the seeds of rebellion starting to form when the new Disney+ show arrives.
But even going into Andor, Diego Luna stresses that it’s just like Rogue One in the fact that this series, too, has a natural end because it can’t go longer than Rogue One. It has to pass the baton off to that story, the way that Rogue One handed the narrative off to Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. So Luna won’t be the next Mark Hamill, playing Luke Skywalker decades later. There’s a conclusion at the end of the show’s announced two-season, 24-episode run. As Luna tells CinemaBlend:
Again, it’s another standalone, in the world of (Star Wars). This one has to end. We know the ending. They will have to change the name if they want it to keep going because Andor, that’s it. … We are meant to be different. We are meant to be alone. And that, I love, because then the writing of someone like Tony Gilroy becomes so pertinent.
As Star Wars fans, do you prefer storylines that build toward conclusions we already are familiar with? Or do you want actors like Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiansen to be able to reprise their classic Star Wars characters years after the fact, if the story allows? No matter where you fall in that discussion, you likely are going to appreciate what the Andor team has put together, so keep this one on your radar for when it lands on Disney+ on September 21.
