- "Our world is exploding in different places right now, people's rights are disappearing, and Andor reflects that. [In the show] the Empire is taking over, and it feels like the same thing is happening in reality, too. I was impressed by Tony's social-realist intentions. He's created a whole new morality. It's very deep and humane—there is grief, mourning, hope, fear. It's not just primary colours here."
- ―Fiona Shaw, in a 2022 interview on Tony Gilroy's Andor
Star Wars: Andor, alternatively titled Andor and later marketed as Andor: A Star Wars Story for the second season, is an American television series developed by Lucasfilm and released on Disney+. The series is a spy thriller starring Diego Luna, reprising his role as Cassian Andor from the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The first season premiered in September 2022, and the second season premiered on April 22, 2025 with a new logo.
Official description
The Andor series will explore a new perspective from the Star Wars galaxy, focusing on Cassian Andor's journey to discover the difference he can make. The series brings forward the tale of the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire and how people and planets became involved. It's an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue where Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.[6]
Development
Announcement
- "Going back to the Star Wars universe is very special for me. I have so many memories of the great work we did together and the relationships I made throughout the journey. We have a fantastic adventure ahead of us, and this new exciting format will give us the chance to explore this character more deeply."
- ―Diego Luna, on reprising his role
Talks for a television series focused on Cassian Jeron Andor, Diego Luna's character from the 2016 Star Wars Anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, began before the Anthology film was released, though Luna had doubts that it would happen.[14] In February 2018, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that "a few" Star Wars live-action series were in development for Disney's streaming service.[15] The series was officially announced by Iger during a Disney quarterly earnings call on November 8, 2018.[1]

A promotional banner for the series
On November 30, it was reported that The Americans executive producer Stephen Schiff was tapped to serve as a showrunner while Moana writer Jared Bush was revealed to have originated the project by writing a pilot script and a series bible.[16] According to Production Weekly, the series was scheduled to begin production in October 2019.[17] On July 11, 2019, Rick Famuyiwa was reported to be in talks to direct an undisclosed amount of episodes for the series, with filming scheduled to begin on October 7.[18] On October 15, 2019, Variety reported that Rogue One co-writer Tony Gilroy would be writing the pilot for the series in addition to directing multiple episodes.[19]
Lucasfilm's original concept for the series focused on the adventures of Andor and his reprogrammed KX-series security droid, K-2SO, who is played by Alan Tudyk. The two would have a Butch and Sundance style dynamic, with the two set to storm a citadel[20] in the series pilot.[21] Thanks to his work on Rogue One, Gilroy was consulted for work on the prequel series.[22] He thought the original pitch was "fine" but felt it was "very hard to sustain over a long haul,"[20] questioning what they could do after storming a citadel at the show's very start. Furthermore, he knew from his experience on Rogue One that K-2SO was a hard character to work with for long periods of time, which would make an entire series starring the character difficult, lest Lucasfilm wanted to have to find ways to hide him during many missions.[21] Without outright saying he was interested, Gilroy responded with what was later called "a long forensic manifesto" to Lucasfilm, outlining his issues with the pitch and putting forth his own ideas. Gilroy's idea was the story that would become Andor,[20] pitching a story that took Andor himself "back five years, to the worst night of his life." In the process, the series would see Andor evolve into the man first seen in Rogue One. According to Gilroy, Lucasfilm thought his pitch "looked a little insane,"[22] and he fully admitted the story he had in mind was "a crazy idea" and "radical."[20] In the end, however, Lucasfilm decided Gilroy's story was the route to go.[22]
Gilroy's concepts
Overview
As far back as his pitch to Lucasfilm, Gilroy, as a student of history, wanted to imbue the series with themes of revolution, fascism, politics, rebellion, and the regular people caught up on those conflicts.[22] When Gilroy was asked about political resonances in Andor in November 2022, he stated that the series was written without contemporary politics in mind, drawing on historical revolutions simply as spontaneous events to drive the characters' adventures—"whatever contemporary resonance it has is usually in the eye of the beholder. Oppression is oppression."[23] In another November interview, Gilroy emphasized that his personal politics are "absolutely not important" to the series' themes and that Star Wars allows plentiful comparisons to history. As to the "age old question" of "who's a terrorist and who's a freedom fighter," Gilroy wanted every character to "speak for themselves" to make their motives believable and referred the idea of controversial revolutionaries to historical nation-building movements, naming the United States' Thomas Jefferson and South Africa Nelson Mandela and further listing the revolutions of France, Haiti, Russia and the Soviet Union, and the nation-building of Israel,[24] as well as the Palestinian liberation movement.[25] The season one finale took inspiration from the 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo film The Battle of Algiers, which was based on the Algerian War of Independence against the colonial French government.[26]
Gilroy also likened Andor's character of Luthen Rael as a start-up company founder[24] and, earlier in September, identified the senator and eventual Rebel Alliance leader Mon Mothma as a "figurehead of liberal democracy that will fail"[27]—he compared her to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in another interview in the same month.[28] Fiona Shaw, who played Maarva Andor and spoke in an interview released in August 2022, thought that Gilroy's story is a "scurrilous" and "social-realist" take on "the Trumpian world" that was "exploding in different places right now" with people's rights being taken away.[13]
Five season plan
- "We were halfway through shooting season 1, coming through Covid, and the monumental size of the show, the effort, and everything else was just dawning on us. We realized that I didn't have enough calories to do it, and Diego's face couldn't take the timing, because it just takes too long to make it. We were saved by Disney saying, 'Okay, if you guys can figure out a way to do it, we're into it."
- ―Tony Gilroy, on shifting to two seasons
Originally, Gilroy thought of Andor as a five season show[21] with around sixty episodes. It was during that planning phase that Stellan Skarsgård, who plays Rael, joined the series, but he asked Gilroy to kill off his character at the end of season two so he did not have to stay for the entire series.[30] According to Gilroy, the five season Andor had the same overall story progression as the final series.[21] In the end, he would decide to pivot to just two seasons and believes that he did not lose anything major.[31] Gilroy reflected that he had only planned out season one by the time he was heading into a writer's room.[21]
As recalled by Gilroy, the decision to shift to only two seasons came halfway through season one production as the scale of the production became clear to himself and the crew.[29] Luna feared that he would visibly age over the production of five seasons.[32] Furthermore, Gilroy believed that there was not enough story left in Andor for twelve episodes across four more seasons.[33] As a solution, Andor was shortened to two seasons, with the second season featuring four story arcs that each covered a year of the timeline up to Rogue One.[32] In doing so, Andor fulfilled its purpose of telling a five year story. According to Gilroy, Luna and himself came to the decision together while drinking scotch.[33] Luna, meanwhile, credits Gilroy for the "great idea."[32] Gilroy considers season two "a fascinating experiment."[29]
Production
Season one filming

The original series logo revealed in 2020
On December 3, 2020,[34] Diego Luna confirmed that the series had started filming in London.[35] The title of Andor, as well as behind the scenes footage of the filming of the series, were unveiled on December 10, 2020 at a Disney investors meeting. Filming began in late November of 2020.[36][37] Although Alan Tudyk was initially announced to play K-2SO in the series,[38] he later clarified in January of 2021 that while production was underway, he was not going to appear in the first season. He did, however, expect to be brought into the fold in later seasons.[39]
The showrunners opted for practical environments, with scenes being shot at Pinewood Studios and on location. One scene was shot at Pitlochry, Scotland,[40] while exterior scenes for the Aldhani dam were also filmed in Scotland, at the Cruachan pumped storage hydro plant.[41] Ferrix was very expensive to create. Gilroy stated its "mental build" took two years.[42] Filming wrapped in September 2021.[43]
Season two production
Writers and Actors strikes
As part of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, Gilroy ceased all services on Andor and did not return to the set.[44] A few weeks before season two's UK shoot was to finish, Deadline Hollywood opened an article by stating that filming on season two would pause as a result of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA actors strike. Later in the piece, however, the article stated that, as per what Deadline had learned, the series was still being filmed at Pinewood Studios, but without actors who were part of SAG-AFTRA: American SAG-AFTRA actors had stopped work, as per the strike, while members of the British Equity union remained. According to the report, actors who were part of Equity were warned of potential legal action should they stop work in solidarity with the American union.[45]
Post-strikes
- "That's been our attitude all the way through: not to be cynical, and to take it more seriously than anybody ever took it. Even while we’re changing—some people feel as though it's changing a lot—but even while we're changing the grammar of what you can do, we’re trying very rigorously to be more serious about this shit than anybody ever has been."
- ―Tony Gilroy, on making Andor
In December 2023, Kathryn Hunter confirmed she would be returning as Eedy Karn for season two and shared some behind the scenes pictures via her Instagram page.[47] She later took down the post.[48] Andor was not present on Disney+'s 2024 release schedule shown to the public in December 2023.[49] In an interview with IO9, Andor star Stellan Skarsgård lit up with a smile upon a mention of Andor and promised he was satisfied with the ending, praising Gilroy's writing in specific.[50] In a February 2024 interview with GamesRadar+, Skarsgård stated season two would come in late 2024 or early 2025.[49]
Media
Seasons
Season | Episodes | First airdate | Last airdate |
---|---|---|---|
Credits
Cast | Uncredited cast | Crew | Uncredited crew | Special thanks |
Cast
Uncredited cast
|
Crew
|
Sources
Notes and references
External links
Andor on StarWars.com (backup link)
Andor on Disney's official website (backup link)
Star Wars: Andor on Industrial Light & Magic's official website (backup link)
Andor on Lucasfilm's official website (backup link)
Star Wars: Andor on Disney+ (backup link)
Eedy Karn | Andor | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | That's Just Love | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Steal from the Empire | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Cassian's Journey | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | The Eye | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Kassa | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Luthen's Escape | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | B2EMO | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Table Five | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | One Way Out | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Dedra's Thesis | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Ready for Season 2 | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Bix Caleen | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Luthen | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | The ISB Takes the Lead | Season 1 Now Streaming on Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor | Lieutenant Dedra Meero | Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor Season 2 | Distraction | Now Streaming on Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor Season 2 | I Should Have Reported It | Now Streaming on Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
The final season of Andor is now streaming, only on #DisneyPlus on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor Season 2 | He's Trying to Droid You | Now Streaming on Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
The final season of #Andor is now streaming, only on #DisneyPlus on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor Season 2 | Saw's Speech | Now Streaming on Disney+ on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
Andor (TV series) on Wikipedia
Andor at the Internet Movie Database