When Andy Serkis was first approached to play Kino Loy in Disney Plus’s Andor, he was certain fans would jump to conclusions. “People [are] going to think he’s some strange relationship to Snoke.” It’s not a farfetched concern, Star Wars fans are notorious for concocting outlandish theories (see Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord), but there was something about Kino’s character that Serkis couldn’t say no to.
Snoke and Kino land on opposite ends of the spectrum, the Sith lord, to Serkis, represents the pinnacle of the powerful, so attached to his enormous strength he fears nothing more than losing control. Kino is the polar opposite. He is powerless, beaten down, and just trying to make it through. “It’s a very, very human side of Star Wars,” Serkis told The Playlist.
A self-proclaimed “massive fan of Rogue One” due to its grounded story and sense of realism – Serkis was fascinated by the character. More so when he discovered that creator Tony Gilroy hadn’t specified Kino’s backstory. “I just wanted to know who this guy was before he was incarcerated, who is the man there before any of this?” A brilliant character actor, Serkis was eager to craft the downtrodden man’s origin story.
“He is a principled man, a highly principled individual who was perhaps a like shop steward or a union rep who was quite a firebrand, quite political, stood up for his fellow workers in worker rights issues, and was good at galvanizing people, good at bringing people together, and then was then incarcerated for that very reason, that he was a voice and then that he was put behind bars for perhaps being a threat.”
When Kino is introduced in Andor he is curt and withdrawn. He doesn’t show any of the qualities one would expect from an incarcerated upstart firebrand. Serkis says it’s the only way Loy knows how to move forward after losing everything, “I think he really shut down when he was incarcerated and just wanted to serve his sentence and just keep his head down, get the job done, pump out as many of the pieces as was required, hit the targets, not make a noise, be quiet, eat his food and get through it.”
Over the course of the first season, Kino opens up again, joining the rebels and aiding Andor in his escape. His rousing call to action allowed viewers to glimpse the rebellious zeal that led to his incarnation in the first place. Just when the surly, broken man had fully captured fan affection, Andor took a final twist in the character’s brilliant arc, trapping Kino alone in the now-evacuated prison. The emotionally charged scene was that last bit of filming for the crew. Serkis says, “Everyone was very emotionally charged, and we were literally shooting that scene as people were jumping off and doing these big dives down into these big thick mats.”
The director gave the cast freedom to explore their emotions during the scene. “I tried very different versions of being angry, of being resigned…so almost like finding it darkly humorous. And we’ve just really experimented because there are so many ways you could do it, but I’m really glad that with what he chose, the way that we finally ended up with it in the story, which is just a quiet resignation really. And that, I think there’s something very simple and direct about that.”
After such an emotionally-charged and criminally short farewell, we’re more than excited to hear the Serkis will be returning as Kino Loy for the second season of Andor. For more of Andy Serkis’s thoughts on Andor, Star Wars, and Kino Loy check out this article here. Andor is set to continue in late 2024, but you can watch season one right now on Disney Plus.
Published: Jun 15, 2023 01:01 pm