With Andor set to wrap up in style next Wednesday many of those involved are reflecting on their time with the show. Over the last week we’ve seen illuminating interviews with showrunner Tony Gilroy, star Diego Luna, and many others involved with the critically acclaimed Star Wars hit.
Today brings a couple more intriguing bits of Andor gossip to the table. Andy Serkis has given a wide-ranging interview to StarWars.com about his time as Kino Loy in the prison arc, there’s a fun breakdown from the props master on what it took to construct the various bits of equipment used in the show, and – in a very good omen for the finale – it’s been confirmed as having a record-breaking runtime.
‘Andor’ episode 12 will be Disney Plus’ longest finale to date
There’s long been grumbling amongst Marvel and Star Wars fans that we’re being short-changed when it comes to episode run times. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a particular bugbear, with many noting that after you strip away the preview, logos, and credits you’re left with about half an hour of content. Andor has been a lot better on this front than most, though is going above and beyond with the finale.
According to insider Cryptic HD, who has a track record of correctly nailing Disney Plus run times, the Andor finale will be 53 minutes and 16 seconds long (including credits).
That means we’re getting about 45-50 minutes of new content. With almost every character converging in Ferrix in an attempt to snare Cassian Andor at Maarva’s funeral the episode has a lot to get through. We expect to see Cassian rescuing a mentally broken Bix from the Imperial torture hotel, Syril Karn running into Dedra Meera where she least expects him, and Luthen bringing some explosions and drama along the way. Roll on Wednesday.
Andy Serkis talks Kino Loy
Even in a show with such a stacked cast, Andy Serkis was one of the best things about Andor. His conflicted prison work foreman Kino Loy was the vehicle for a lot of juicy thematic material about becoming a part of the Imperial machine and the ways of rebelling against it. Kino Loy isn’t Serkis’ first role in Star Wars, having played Supreme Leader Snoke in the sequel trilogy, and in this new interview with StarWars.com he admits he knew this would instantly spark some outlandish fan theories:
“I was slightly trepidatious because when I came into it I was thinking, ‘Oh no, no, the Snoke theories are just going to go crazy! Is this Snoke? Has he come back?’”
But, like most who’ve worked on Andor, Serkis said working with showrunner Tony Gilroy was a dream:
“I was such a huge fan of Rogue One, which I absolutely adored and when we met and we talked about [the part of Kino Loy], I really just fell in love with the character.”
Though we never learn Kino’s backstory, Serkis came up with his own take on the character’s past:
“He’s used to working on the factory floor and standing up for workers’ rights. This is a man who cares for others. And he just suddenly finds himself in a world where he has to keep his head down, not speak his truth, and just try and get through his sentence believing that he’s going be freed. … Here was a man who is quite forceful. He’s direct and actually he’s hardened, I think, by the harsh treatment that he’s received on Narkina 5. He’s a task master and is quite unforgiving and shuts people down and is almost a bully, in a way. But the system is all about competition. The way that the floor is run, it’s about beating other people. And if you’re not, then you get electrocuted. It’s punishment or reward and the rewards are meager.”
Kino Loy’s story ends on a bittersweet note. Having been instrumental in the prison revolt it’s revealed he won’t be able to leave with the other prisoners as he can’t swim to freedom. Serkis baked that into the character, which can be seen in his incredible speech urging the other prisoners to take action:
“All of these things really helped to mold the character, from the writing through to the design through to the talks that we’d had. And then understanding of course that I knew where he would end up, knowing the fact that he’s never really gonna be able to get out of this even while he has to carry on inspiring others to do so. There is a lot of pathos in the role and I really enjoyed playing that but keeping him grounded at all times so it didn’t become sentimental.”
We never actually see Kino’s fate, but even though his part in the story is over we’re quietly hoping he somehow returns down the line. As far as we’re concerned the more Andy Serkis the better.
Breaking down the best props in ‘Andor’
And finally, there’s an excellent rundown of Andor‘s props, courtesy of an interview on StarWars.com with prop master Andy Doust. Doust has worked on every film in the Disney era, but Andor was slightly different as Gilroy came in with a philosophy of making everything as grounded as possible. The entire interview is well worth a read, but we like that Cassian Andor’s blaster takes inspiration from video game Star Wars: Battlefront:
“We went deeper into the Expanded Universe of Star Wars, and we went all the way to the computer games.”
This prop goes a little further than most as it’s partly functional, aiding in Diego Luna’s performance:
“It would completely work. Diego [Luna] became really great at flicking the wrist, very subtly hitting the button that controlled the mechanism that spun the barrel. You see him do it a couple of times in some of the scenes, and it’s just this nice little detail.”
Another key prop is the Imperial Starpath unit seen in the first three episodes. This was made from a mysterious piece of obsolete military hardware. Doust admits he still has no idea what it was originally used for but says:
My theory was that this was the element of the navigational computer that plots the path through the stars,” he says. “When you go into hyperspace, this is what makes sure when you come out the other end — that you don’t appear in the middle of the planet. … This is the one bit of equipment that makes sure that Star Destroyer gets to where it’s gotta go.”
Andor‘s palpable sense of physicality helps ground the show and distinguish it from other Star Wars media and these props are a huge part of that. So, we’re putting our hands together for Doust, who seems to be worth his weight in gold when it comes to making a galaxy far, far away feel real.
We’re now counting down the days until Andor‘s finale and are praying it’ll stick the landing. Everything we’ve seen so far indicates they’ll nail it, so roll on Wednesday 23 Nov.
That’s all the Star Wars news for this week. See you on Monday.
