This story incorporates spoilers for episodes one by means of 9 of Andor’s second season.
Star Wars followers knew this second was coming. With the Ghorman Massacre imminent, lore had it that Mon Mothma—the politician from Chandrila combating for peace and democracy, whereas secretly serving as an informant for the Rebellion—would give an explosive speech earlier than the Senate that might formally finish her double life and turbocharge resistance to the Empire. In the ninth episode of Andor’s second and last season, we attain that time. An elaborate plan comes collectively to permit Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) to talk from the dais, towards the needs of her colleagues and the Empire’s management—and extra surprisingly, we hear her unshakable remarks in full.
“I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. For all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous,” she says. “The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us—when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands—we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
Andor has been profoundly resonant this season, maybe by no means greater than with that rousing, devastating polemic. It’s delivered with exacting delicacy by O’Reilly, who’s been ready 20 years to ship this very speech.
Caroline Blakiston originated the function of Mon Mothma in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. O’Reilly, contemporary out of drama college at the time, was ultimately solid as a youthful model of the senator in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. O’Reilly’s scenes had been largely minimize from that prequel, and she or he left the Star Wars movies for a decade, till Rogue One—the film cowritten by Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind Andor, and whose occasions lead proper into A New Hope. Her function then expanded in Andor.
This speech offers us our richest perception but into Mon Mothma. “It’s the fulcrum, the crux of who she is,” O’Reilly tells Vanity Fair. “The opportunity to get to do that as an actor was everything.”
Vanity Fair: I do know Tony likes to stipulate storylines for actors as a lot as he can. When do you know you’d be attending to make that speech?
Genevieve O’Reilly: I knew from the very starting—from the very early phases, even after we had been speaking about [the show] being 5 seasons—that the escape from the Senate, that threshold that she needed to cross, was at all times a part of her story. Tony stated to me that the weight of her emotional work and her worth as a personality would actually be in episodes seven, eight, and 9. I knew that we had been heading for that. I used to be determined.
What was it like while you obtained that script?
I’ll let you know one thing distinctive about the way it landed. Tony is kind of engaged as a showrunner. When scripts would land, he would ring; he was usually in New York and we had been in London. But when that script landed, episode 9 in explicit, he was in London and he got here into my trailer. Dan [Gilroy], his brother, wrote that script. But the speech wasn’t the speech we’ve got now. The speech was moments of the speech. So they create this inside the structure of Andor: There are these large moments, however there are a number of issues occurring. The Diego [Luna] storyline, the dissident teams, there’s all taking place round her speech.
In the preliminary script, you solely heard the odd line of her speech. It was peppered with bits. But Tony got here in and he stated, “What do you think of the script?” I stated, “I love where you’re going. I love the dexterity of it and I can’t wait to get into it.” And then I leant ahead and took a breath, and he stated, “You want me to write the whole speech, don’t you?” And I stated, “Yeah, I do. I want you to write the whole speech.” It was an actual mark of him understanding me as an actor: how I prefer to work, and what I used to be reaching for, and likewise what I actually needed for the character.
