Star Wars: Andor was one of the franchise’s biggest successes in its Disney era, but there was one aspect about it that star Diego Luna did not enjoy. During an appearance on the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the actor discussed what it’s like working in the TV medium and pointed out one key difference when compared to movies. He noted that unlike films, which are conceived with a beginning, middle, and end in mind, the creative team behind a TV series doesn’t always know where things are going to go when they start. That can create an anxious feeling on set during production.
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“There’s one thing I don’t like [about TV], which is things start without knowing where they’re going to end,” Luna said. “Everyone’s talking about the next season and probably there’s another one and there’s an anxiety of, like, how much more can we achieve? And it’s nice to start something knowing where it ends.”
Andor recently wrapped up its two-season run on Disney+ with a critically acclaimed batch of episodes that built up to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The prequel earned a considerable amount of praise for adding a great deal of depth and complexity to the Star Wars franchise, recontextualizing key elements from previous released projects. In particular, it forever changes the way fans look at Rogue One and the original trilogy as it highlights the origins and moral ambiguity of the Rebellion.
Outside of Andor, Luna has accumulated several other TV credits throughout his career. One of his more notable small screen turns was in Narcos: Mexico. He’s also scored voice over roles in animated series such as Maya and the Three, Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, and Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia.
Though Andor was in a unique position as a prequel to a feature film, it’s easy to see where Luna is coming from. While audiences knew Cassian Andor’s fate before the first episode of Andor premiered, the show introduces a multitude of new characters and storylines that needed to be properly resolved. As seen with Star Wars: The Acolyte, Disney will pull the plug on a TV show if they feel it isn’t working (even if there are cliffhangers left dangling). Andor turned out to be one of the best Star Wars projects to date, but if the first season didn’t turn out as well, creator Tony Gilroy and his team might not have gotten the opportunity to wrap things up.
Fortunately, despite Disney’s stance that “streaming is dead,” Gilroy got complete freedom to tell the story he was most interested in, ending Andor on a poignant and hopeful note. If the show had been cancelled after a single season, it would have risked ruining the legacy of Rogue One, but instead, it enhanced it. In a post-Andor world, it’ll be interesting to see how Lucasfilm handles Star Wars TV shows moving forward. Ahsoka Season 2 is on the way, but after that, no live-action series are on the schedule. The Mandalorian & Grogu movie seems to be taking the place of The Mandalorian Season 4, but perhaps there will be more Star Wars TV shows in the future. For all its risks, the medium gives Lucasfilm an expansive sandbox to flesh out the galaxy far, far away.
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