Amy Richau writing at StarWars.com talks to Genevieve O’Reilly about returning to play Mon Mothma in the second and final season of Andor, during some of the most challenging and dangerous moments of her character’s life.
“I’ve never done anything like that before,” O’Reilly says about the structure of Andor’s second season. “Each three episodes jumping a year, almost like a window into life for a day or weekend. A slice of life.”
At the end of Andor’s first season Mon had agreed to arrange a betrothal ceremony between her daughter Leida and the shady Chandrilan banker Davo Sculdun’s son, in exchange for Davo’s help to hide her financial transgressions. “We understand that that’s very complicated and she’s living with a lot of conflict around that,” said O’Reilly. “We also know that it allows us a window into how vital the rebellion is for her, the fact that she would cross that line. I felt sick with complication for Mon Mothma the woman. And Mon Mothma the rebel. And what you have to navigate and swallow.”
Evolution of a Rebel Leader
During Andor’s second season premiere, Mon did her best to not show the cracks forming amid the tension she felt from her daughter’s upcoming wedding. It’s hard enough having to host a high profile event even if you’re not leading a secret double life and must be seen by the hundreds of guests at the family’s lavish Chandrilan estate. O’Reilly described the wedding scenes as “a window into someone else’s marriage — dysfunctional marriage — that is also beautiful and ornate. Like glass you know is going to break any minute.”
In these scenes, Mon also juggled evolving relationships with her childhood friend, Tay Kolma, who has been simmering with bitterness over the risks he has taken on Mon’s behalf; Luthen Rael, who makes an unexpected appearance to deliver a wedding gift; and her cousin Vel, who joins in the family festivities despite her own misgivings about the traditions. Mon’s dual existence has never been more on display, a precarious position for all involved.
“I think she’s really good at keeping the personal and hiding that,” said O’Reilly. “She wears armor, clearly. There are moments I think where you really recognize a family wedding, and then you realize by the end that it has been some sort of fresh hell for this woman. And there are things that happen that are so complicated and awful and they reverberate from Mon Mothma through the rest of the season. There is joy, there is laughter, there is all that familial ecstasy that is a wedding and then there is in an emotional place where she is the inverse of that, where she’s wrestling with some very dark personal choices. I think part of her heart will have atrophied after that wedding.”
Senator on the Run
The latest episodes in Andor’s second season focus on Mon’s break with the Imperial Senate. “Within the senate Mon is becoming lonelier,” notes O’Reilly. “She has few allies. Palpatine’s power and grip on the senate is undeniable. She is isolated. And she’s in danger. The rebellion as we move through the series is growing because we are becoming more successful. We also, like most things, become divided, fractured. And with fracture comes confusion. So nothing is as it seems.”
Mon’s speech in episode nine was a focal point for O’Reilly as it gave her character a voice as a woman, politician, and as a leader. O’Reilly felt that she and Gilroy both wanted the political narrative to feel rooted and real for the character as Mothma made a speech to the senate after the Imperial massacre at Ghorman.
“She speaks on behalf of all those people being murdered by the state,” said O’Reilly. “She implicitly understands the violence that is being perpetrated and performed. And that it will come to her. And that it will come to all those that she knows and loves.”
Read the interview in full here, and stream Andor exclusively on Disney+ now.
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