Diego Luna reveals the moment he knew ‘Andor’ would be something special

For all the love that the world has for Star Wars, it’s not terribly difficult to understand why fans of the franchise might get a bit restless from the constant onslaught of spin-offs. At this rate, it looks like Disney isn’t going to rest until at least three spin-offs to every spin-off see the light of day.

Of course, there’s one spin-off to a spin-off that the world will happily gobble up more of, and that’s Andor, the grounded political thriller that rocketed Star Wars into Golden Globe territory. We’re not sure if showrunner Tony Gilroy knew he had a masterpiece on his hands before he started shooting or not, but judging by the amount of care put into its plotting, characterization, and dialogue, it’s safe to say that that’s certainly what he was going for.

In fact, it was Gilroy himself that single-handedly got Diego Luna on board with the project in record time. In an interview with The Playlist, Luna reminisced on the moment he realized he would be starring in an absolute marvel of a television series; specifically, the moment the pitch left Gilroy’s lips.

“It was when I listened to Tony Gilroy’s pitch. And he started telling me his idea, the structure he had, the idea for Cassian’s background, and most importantly, the aim of the series. What was the purpose of the series, and the very ambitious take on basically telling a story about how a revolution erupts.”

He would go on to note that the show’s departure from the usual Star Wars ethos, which tends to value sci-fi cheese and epic space battles over dramatic substance, did a lot of heavy lifting in capturing his attention.

“And not just his ideas were very powerful, but he also wanted to take risks. He was hoping to take this as far as possible into doing something very different from anything we had seen before in the universe of Star Wars. And that was very appealing.”

Kudos to Luna for having such a good eye for projects; prior to its release, everyone figured Andor would just be another leaf in the wind as far as the wider Star Wars conversation goes, and now it’s on course to go down in history as one of the best entries in the franchise’s history. Season 2 can’t come fast enough.

Andor is available to stream on Disney Plus.