‘Andor’ Star Genevieve O’Reilly on Her 20-Year Journey as Mon Mothma: ‘I Could Never Have Imagined This’

Twenty years ago, George Lucas cast Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, a character originally introduced in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” for his prequel “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.” Years later she would return for “Rogue One,” a prequel to the original “Star Wars,” in a brief cameo. She voiced the character on the animated series “Rebels” and popped up on a handful of episodes of “Ahsoka.” But O’Reilly would really get to spread her wings in “Andor,” the live-action Disney+ series from creator Tony Gilroy that dramatized the lead-up to “Rogue One,” with the title character (once again played by Diego Luna) going from listless drifter to a politically resolute figure in the burgeoning Rebellion.

With “Andor” Season 2, the final season of this “Star Wars” story, O’Reilly really gets to shine, as we see her complete her transition from senate leader to the principal in a guerrilla war spread across the entire galaxy. It’s really something. And it’s taken O’Reilly wholly offguard.

“It’s been quite a surprise along the way, to be asked back. They didn’t need to do that,” O’Reilly told TheWrap. She said it “felt really special” to be asked back for “Rogue One.” And she thought that was it.

“I could never have imagined this. I think she’s been written for in a way that she’s never been written for before. And I get to play that. I mean, it’s been a real gift for me to get to wrestle her, to get to know her, to get to discover her, to get to and to get to some real specifics of who the woman is,” O’Reilly said.

Gilroy said that Mon Mothma “has the most difficult path of any character in the show.” “She has to do everything under glass, observed all the time. She’s frozen there,” Gilroy said. He said that Vel, Mothma’s cousin and another key member of the Rebellion (played brilliantly by Faye Marsay) can go off on a mission and “shoot a gun and risk her life,” but Mon Mothma is just as stuck. With Mothma, it’s “the masks.” “It’s such a series of masks – and it’s one after the other. You pull one off and there’s another one underneath it,” Gilroy said.

The first three episodes of the season put Mon Mothma on the backfoot as she is attempting to stage her daughter’s wedding to the son of a local wheeler-and-dealer, part of an arrangement she made, in part, to move money around for the Rebellion. It almost plays like a romantic comedy, as she is attempting to salvage her relationship with her daughter and pull off a wedding without anyone getting knowledge of what is simmering beneath the surface. (It’s also a thrill for “Star Wars” nerds to finally see Mon Mothma’s home planet of Chandrila.)

“The relationships to open those early episodes is so special. I have never expected to be able to do such dexterous relationship work within ‘Star Wars,’” O’Reilly said. “It’s really investigating intergenerational relationship and there is beauty and pain in every moment of it. They’re so broken and so beautiful.” O’Reilly picked a particularly fraught moment between Mon Mothma and her daughter Leida (played by Bronte Carmichael) as being of importance (no spoilers). “That was really special,” O’Reilly said.

“Talk about a mask. How quickly does she recover from that? That’s being hit in the head with a two by four, You see it in real time right in front of you. You watch it being put on,” Gilroy said. She is then put in a very difficult position with her old friend Tay Kolma (Ben Miles), a member of the Rebellion who is having second thoughts (and threatening to spill the beans). This leads to her having a rather cathartic dance at her daughter’s wedding that borders on the manic. You can feel everything going on with Mon Mothma in the way she dances. Like much of “Andor” it is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

“The only people who know what she’s really going through are you who are watching and her. No one else in that room [knows],” said Gilroy. “Everybody else is having a good time. Maybe you could look at her and go, Oh, my God, maybe she’s a little drunk. She’s dancing in chaos. She’s dancing on fire. She’s dancing to stop from screaming.” O’Reilly, Gilroy said, “is bringing that Genevieve rowdy thimg.” (It was one of the few days Gilroy was on set.)

O’Reilly said, for all the pain that the character was going through, they still managed to have fun that day, which was filmed after the SAG-AFTRA strike had temporarily halted production. “It was one of my favorite days on set ever,” O’Reilly said. “It was so special.” And it was just as special watching it unfold.

The first three episodes of “Andor” Season 2 are streaming now on Disney+.

The post ‘Andor’ Star Genevieve O’Reilly on Her 20-Year Journey as Mon Mothma: ‘I Could Never Have Imagined This’ appeared first on TheWrap.