Nearly two years after it debuted on Disney Plus, Lucasfilm’s Andor remains the standard for a Star Wars streaming series. Set five years before the events of Rogue One, Andor dove into the earliest days of the Rebellion and boldly did so with an all-new cast of characters outside of the series’ lead, Cassian Andor, once again portrayed by Diego Luna. Recently, Luna teased that Season 2–which will cover the four years between Season 1 and Rogue One–would feature cameos from Rogue One characters and now it seems one has been revealed.
The scale of the show is so huge. Directors work in blocks of three episodes, so we did four blocks [in Season 1] of three episodes each. We looked and said, ‘Wow, it’d be really interesting if we come back, and we use each block to represent a year. We’ll move a year closer with each block.’ From a narrative point of view, it’s really exciting to be able to work on something where you do a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then jump a year.
–Andor creator Tony Gilroy on the structure of the show’s timeline.
In an interview with The Playlist, Alonso Ruizpalacios, who is one of several directors to have worked on Andor Season 2, revealed that Ben Mendelsohn is set to reprise his role as the villainous Orson Krennic.
While discussing Season 2 of the streaming series, Ruizpalacios said he was excited to have worked with “heavyweights” such as “Stellan Skarsgård, Forest Whitaker, and Ben Mendelsohn.” While the return of Krennic makes plenty of sense, it’s the first news of Mendelsohn’s return; in fact, the actor had previously indicated that he did expect to be involved in the show. “As for being contacted by Lucasfilm for a new project, I can tell you that no, I have not been approached for something like this,” Mendelsohn told Bad Taste in February 2024. “And yes, it would be great to see him again somewhere, but for now, everything stops here,” he continued.
But as far as I’m concerned, I would be very willing to explore it further and significantly in that world. I never expected to play a character like that, but then again, I never expected to become an actor, either. For me, they are all wonderful things. I think Krennic has a tremendous amount of things left to give to the audience. What you need to understand about a character like Krennic is that, if he had the chance, he would have tried to take over the entire game, and it seems to me that this aspect has not yet been explored sufficiently.
-Ben Mendelsohn on returning as Krennic, Bad Taste, February 2024
Series creator Tony Gilroy has already stated that the last shot of Andor Season 2 will be set immediately before the opening of Rogue One. “Our final scene of the show is no secret. It’s going to be [Cassian] walking across the tarmac to get in the ship to go to the Rings of Kafrene to go meet Daniel Mays’ [the character Cassian kills in the opening of the film], he’s going there.” So where does Mendelsohn’s character fit in? As a member of the Republic’s Strategic Advisory Cell, Krennic was involved in the planning of the Death Star from its earliest days, suggesting that the work of his former colleague, Galen Erso, be utilized in weaponizing the DS-1. While Rogue One provided a flashback to Krennic’s tragic encounter with Erso after the former had failed in his work, Andor Season 2 leaves plenty of room to tell more of Krennic’s story and could even see him interacting with other high-level members of the Empire such as Tarkin or Thrawn. Whatever the case, we’ll have to wait quite some time before we find out as Andor Season 2 isn’t expected to hit Disney Plus until 2025.
Source: The Playlist, Bad Taste
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