After the pulpy adventure-of-the-week fun of shows like The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, the Star Wars franchise has delivered its first true prestige drama with Andor. What was thought to be an unnecessary prequel to Rogue One about a character that fans didn’t care about has turned out to be one of the greatest pieces of Star Wars media ever made. Andor is everything fans have wanted from a Star Wars series. It’s not about cameos, cheap thrills, and fan service; it’s a compelling drama about rich, interesting, original characters that just happens to be set in a galaxy far, far away. Using the broad canvas of the Rebellion’s struggle to defeat the Galactic Empire, Tony Gilroy and his team of writers created a gripping political drama about the devastating cost of revolution against dictators. The cast brought that poignant, timely story to life with some of the most nuanced and three-dimensional performances in Star Wars history. From Diego Luna’s powerful turn in the title role to Denise Gough’s portrayal of a sympathetic Imperial bureaucrat, some Andor cast members deserve Emmy consideration next year.
Diego Luna
The most obvious Andor cast member who should be considered for an Emmy nomination is Andor himself, Diego Luna. After his delivery of Rogue One lines like “I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old,” Luna has been given the chance to explore the backstory of those lines. Dealing with heavy emotions like losing a mother and getting wrongfully arrested by totalitarian cops, Luna anchored the series with a lead performance whose depth and resonance matched that of the writing.
Although he did a lot of Rebel preaching in Rogue One, this slightly younger pre-Rebellion Cassian is portrayed as a softly spoken strong, silent type, so Luna had to convey a lot of the character’s emotions non-verbally – and he knocked it out of the park. With just a glance across the prison block or a moment of eye contact with another character, Luna could tell the audience exactly what was going through Cassian’s head in a given scene.
Genevieve O’Reilly
Nearly two decades ago, Genevieve O’Reilly was cast as would-be Rebel leader Mon Mothma in a scene from Revenge of the Sith that ultimately ended up on the cutting room floor. After Disney acquired Lucasfilm, they brought back O’Reilly as Mon, but relegated her to cameo appearances in projects like Rogue One and Rebels. Andor has finally given O’Reilly a Mon Mothma role worthy of her talents – better late than never.
In Andor, Mon is not yet the diehard Bothan-mourning Rebel leader introduced in Return of the Jedi. Back in the days when the Imperial Senate was still functional, Mon was torn between her political duties and her secret Rebel dealings. O’Reilly has brought a real sense of conflicted humanity to a character previously used as an exposition delivery system.
Andy Serkis
Most of Andor’s headlining cast members, like Luna and O’Reilly, were revealed in the show’s marketing. But the prison arc introduced a surprise new cast member who ended up leaving a lasting impression. Andy Serkis had previously appeared as Supreme Leader Snoke in the sequel trilogy, but the role of Cassian Andor’s gruff jailhouse ringleader Kino Loy gave Serkis much more to work with than the sequels’ store-brand Palpatine. Gilroy and co. gave Serkis a character with more depth and pathos and emotional turning points in a couple of episodes of Andor than he got from the entire sequel trilogy.
In his three-episode Andor arc, Serkis got the chance to traverse a fully fleshed-out character journey. He introduced Kino as a hard-edged, mean-spirited veteran inmate lording the illusion of power over his fellow jailbirds. Over the next two episodes, he exposed the character’s vulnerabilities and charted his transformation from subservient prisoner to budding escapee. This led to some truly moving payoffs in the prison break episode. Serkis nails the defeated delivery of his heartbreaking last words: “I can’t swim.”
Denise Gough
Ever since the original Star Wars movie took the world by storm, just about every actor to take on a bureaucratic Imperial role has emulated the cartoonish smarm of Peter Cushing’s unforgettable performance as foul-stenching Grand Moff Tarkin. Cushing’s Hammer Horror chops made him perfect for the pulpy, archetypal style of George Lucas’ vision. But Denise Gough has taken that archetype into all-new dramatic territory with her turn in Andor.
In the role of ISB advisor Dedra Meero, Gough recharacterized the Imperial bureaucrat as a career-driven go-getter. Like Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, Meero has been given a job by the autocrats in charge and she wants to do it well. Gough brings authenticity to both the stern face Meero puts on and the fear she masks with that tough facade.
Stellan Skarsgård
The strongest theme in Andor is the cost of rebellion, told through the story of the formation of the Rebel Alliance. When Luke Skywalker joins the Rebel Alliance in their bid to destroy the Death Star, the Rebels are a fully formed organization with a wealth of resources, but Andor has explored how that organization came together, and the sacrifices necessary to get the Rebellion off the ground. That theme is best embodied by Luthen Rael, the Coruscant antique dealer who moonlights as an anti-Imperial revolutionary.
Stellan Skarsgård is arguably the most famous actor in this cast, and he also gives one of the show’s most human performances, playing Luthen as equal parts ice-cool badass and tragic hero. From his monologue about giving up everything for a victory he’ll never see to his ideological debates with Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, Skarsgård commands the audience’s attention whenever he’s on-screen.