Women of ‘Andor’ see their roles get bigger in Season 2

Mon Mothma was first introduced to “Star Wars” fans as the rebel leader who appears only long enough to move the plot forward by delivering battle plans in hushed tones. But in the last moments of the most recent “Andor” episodes on Disney+ (spoilers for already released episodes ahead) she is a patrician senator who, soaked in high-end space and potent emotions, tears up the dance floor to a bass-and-drums rave-up at her daughter’s wedding. The scene would play as comic if it weren’t tragic. None of her fellow revellers know that she has just taken a major step in her rise — or descent — into radicalism by washing her hands of an old friend who may be a threat to the burgeoning Rebel Alliance.

The size of the scene — and its subtleties — shows off the new levels of depth and breadth given to actors Genevieve O’Reilly, Adria Arjona and other central women in the second season of “Andor”; three new episodes drop on Tuesday.

“It’s a techno-galactic dance moment, but it’s also this moment of internal chaos for this woman,” O’Reilly said in an interview. “She’s tacitly agreed to have her friend murdered. She’s dancing to stop herself from screaming. It’s deeply painful. It is that one moment where we can actually see Mon Mothma wrestle out of this straitjacket and dance with terrified abandon.”

Mothma’s conflict is in some ways even more central to the show’s premise — what does it take to make a revolution? — than that of the title character, played by Diego Luna. Like many real-life figures past and present, she is trying to maintain a facade of respectful, and respectable, opposition to tyranny while feeling the pull of open rebellion.

“If she drops that mask of diplomacy, she’s useless,” O’Reilly said. “She’s only effective if she maintains composure.” “Andor” creator Tony Gilroy said that Mothma’s “journey is the hardest, I think. Because she has to do everything, and has to be observed. She can’t move.”

The character originated as a brief-but-memorable role for Caroline Blakiston in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.” The 48-year-old Ireland-born O’Reilly, who has lived much of her adult life in Australia, was first cast in the role of the young senator when the 2005 prequel “Revenge of the Sith” was shooting there, because, she says with a laugh, she was the “palest person in Sydney.”

All of her “Sith” scenes were relegated to DVD extras. But she would reprise the role in 2016’s “Rogue One,” to which “Andor” is a prequel, and has played the part in the Lucasfilm properties “Star Wars: Rebels” and “Ahsoka.”

But it’s in “Andor,” especially Season 2, where the origin story of the leader from the planet Chandrila is truly told.

“You really feel that she’s of value to this world that is created,” O’Reilly said. “That’s the gift that every actor wants.”

Gilroy wrote the first three episodes of Season 2, and says he insisted on including the elaborate and difficult-to-produce three-day wedding ceremony that ends with the scene set to a chaotic dance-club remix of composer Nicholas Brittel’s “Niamos!” from Season 1.

Gilroy says the expanded roles for his show’s women came in part from him learning the talents of the performers. “You get a big show like this where time is really your friend in a way,” he said, “and you watch who rises.” Gilroy knew O’Reilly from “Rogue One,” which he also wrote, but said she’s basically “a piece of furniture” in that movie.

He brought her to “Andor” as a legacy character without giving it much thought. But then he got to see her work.

“It was like, ‘My God, look what she can do, she can do anything,” Gilroy said. “She’s a freaking Steinway. Let’s go for it.” He had a similar experience of discovery with Elizabeth Dulau, whose character Kleya had an intriguing but small part in Season 1 as the lieutenant of violent revolutionary Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård).

Associated Press