You know, Andor has become one of the standout gems in the Star Wars galaxy, delivering a raw, grounded take on the Rebellion we hadn’t really seen before.
But have you ever wondered how it all came together?
The story behind Tony Gilroy’s involvement is almost as compelling as the show itself.
Sometimes, the best stories happen behind the scenes, and that’s exactly the case with Andor.
Tony Gilroy, the creative mind behind the show, wasn’t exactly planning a return to the Star Wars universe.
In fact, back in 2017, he openly admitted that he didn’t expect to revisit Star Wars after his work on Rogue One.
But as fate would have it, Kathleen Kennedy had other plans, and her approach was just bold enough to pull him back in.
Gilroy initially wasn’t too excited about taking on a Star Wars project again.
He noted that previous attempts at the show felt trapped by what he called “this reverence for Star Wars.”
At the time, large-scale streaming projects weren’t the norm, and the economics simply didn’t support a bold venture like Andor.
As he described it, “There wasn’t anybody who was going to spend that kind of money on a show.”
But Kathleen Kennedy saw potential in Gilroy and his unfiltered perspective.
She sent him one of the early pilots for the show, something that others had worked on but had ultimately stalled out. He sat down, wrote what he called a “big manifesto,” and laid out exactly how the series should look.
In his own words, Gilroy explained, “This is what your show should be like. This is what you should never do. This is why this doesn’t work.”
He didn’t just critique the pilot—he completely reframed the idea of what the show could be.
And while his feedback was well-received, Lucasfilm wasn’t ready to go all-in on such an ambitious approach just yet.
“They were like, ‘Well, that’s really great. Thanks for helping us know what’s wrong, but we could never do this,’” Gilroy shared.
So they tried a few other ideas, but nothing quite clicked. Then, when the timing was right and streaming platforms had become more daring with their budgets and visions, Kennedy circled back to Gilroy’s ideas.
Years later, Gilroy was contacted again. This time, Kennedy and Lucasfilm were ready to embrace his ambitious vision. “They went back and pulled this old memo,” he said, “and they were like, ‘We want to do this now.’”
For Gilroy, the timing couldn’t have been better. He described how several of his other projects had fallen apart, and the opportunity to create something bold and meaningful was too good to pass up.
“It wasn’t an overnight thing that you tiptoe into,” Gilroy explained. “It takes a long time. Everybody tiptoes forward, but that’s how it came to be.”