After 20 Years as Mon Mothma, Genevieve O’Reilly Gets Her

[This story contains spoilers for Andor season two’s three-episode premiere.]

Andor star Genevieve O’Reilly finally has the answer to a question she’s been asking herself since she started playing Mon Mothma as of 2005’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

When O’Reilly first revisited Caroline Blakiston’s debut as the former Chandrilan Senator turned Rebel Alliance leader in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983), she sensed a particular anguish in Blakiston’s Mon Mothma that she’s been trying to get to the bottom of across her various other appearances in The Clone Wars, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and now, Andor. In the latter case, creator Tony Gilroy took the canonical destinations she already had in mind and muddied Andor‘s two-season journey along the way, resulting in the clarity she’s long been pursuing.

“It has been at the heart of my curiosity all the way through [Andor]. With respect to what Caroline and George [Lucas] did, that’s what I was seeking, and I think we found it and more,” O’Reilly tells The Hollywood Reporter.

In the Gilroy-penned and Ariel Kleiman-directed third episode of Andor season two, the bumpy road continues when Axis network leader Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) decides that Mon’s lifelong friend and Rebellion co-financier, Tay Kolma (Ben Miles), has become too much of a liability due to his recent marital and financial troubles. (Ironically, the Rebel activity that Tay helped fund ultimately hurt his finances.) Once Mon picks up on the implications of what Luthen is putting down, she heads to the dance floor at her daughter’s arranged wedding and lets loose. The episode then cuts from Mon’s inebriated dancing to Luthen’s trusted Rebel operator, Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu), who’s been tasked with posing as Tay’s driver and eliminating him.

“She’s just keeping herself from screaming,” O’Reilly explains. “She’s witnessing an unraveling of a friend, and that’s deeply unsettling. Of course, Luthen is laser-focused on him. At one point, he says, ‘You know the number,’ and that’s a big threshold she has to cross.”

Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, O’Reilly also discusses her other recent appearances on Ashoka in between Andor seasons, before looking ahead to her future as Mon Mothma.

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Of all the things you thought you’d do as Mon Mothma, drunkenly dancing to electronic dance music probably wasn’t on your list of expectations, was it? 

It was a pretty special surprise to read it in the script and then see how it manifests after all the work with choreographers and directors and camera people. In the script, it was a bit vague how we were going to end it, but we knew that it had to get inside her head. And Tony [Gilroy] wrote something like, “She spins and spins.” There was a curiosity about the chaos inside a woman’s head, and where we finished was such a great antithetical expression of how we’d ever seen this woman before. She’s just keeping herself from screaming.

Yeah, if being a senator and the secret leader of the Rebellion wasn’t enough of a burden, she’s also putting on a wedding for her daughter that she had to arrange for her own protection. She couldn’t be more stressed out.

Yeah, she has to hold a lot within quite a delicate facade of diplomacy. If diplomacy is her superpower, it’s vital that she maintains composure. If she loses it at any point, if she drops the bundle, she’s ineffective to the Rebellion. She’s an ineffective tool of that Rebellion. So it’s always so interesting as an actor to be able to play within a character who has such strict confines, and there are those tiny little moments where you can be in a dance with the audience, really. The audience knows [what she’s juggling], but you have to cage it from the other characters.

Tay Kolma confronts Mon with his sudden marital and financial problems, and Luthen urges her to “find a number” that keeps him quiet. But given how others, namely Mon’s husband Perrin (Alastair Mackenzie), perceive Mon and Tay’s friendship, do you think Tay has more on his mind than just money? (Perrin sarcastically refers to Tay as Mon’s “lover” and “boyfriend”.)

That’s probably a question for Ben Miles, who’s extraordinary. But I would say that he feels loose. He feels a bit untethered, and from Mon’s perspective, she can see someone who’s fraying, someone who’s looking for false idols and someone who’s really drinking the gold, if you will. You can see him being seduced by the idea of who Davo Sculdun [Richard Dilane] is, and that plays out in many ways. So she’s witnessing an unraveling of a friend, and that’s deeply unsettling. So it could mean many things, and, of course, Luthen is laser-focused on him. At one point, he says, “You know the number,” and that’s a big threshold she has to cross.

You once told me that you sensed a certain “pain” in Caroline Blakiston’s Mon Mothma from Return of the Jedi, and that you were curious to find out what that pain might be. Is it safe to say that this episode block and the rest of the season have answered your question? 

I love that you remember that; thanks for that. It has been at the heart of my curiosity all the way through [Andor]. With respect to what Caroline and George [Lucas] did, that’s what I was seeking, and I think we found it and more. We’ve explored such a complex, brilliant, broken, beautiful woman, and Andor has put flesh and blood and sinew and heart and pain within this woman in a way that I could have only hoped for, actually. The width that Andor and Tony have given me to play in really is a gift both for me as an actor and also for Mon as a character.

You also played Mon on Ahsoka in between Andor season one and two. Was it confusing at all to play a different era of her life while still in the middle of her Andor arc?

It did feel like a real juxtaposition because Andor is such a deep dive into character. So, of course, that’s where my head was; that’s where my creativity was. What Rosario [Dawson] and what [EP] Dave [Filoni] and [EP] Jon [Favreau] were doing for those women in [Ahsoka] felt really important for that universe, and so they asked me to come on and step into it. But I didn’t really know where that fit, and to be honest with you, I didn’t ask too many questions. I just thought I understood the essence of the woman; I understand her. So I felt that it was up to them to create; that’s their call. But, yeah, I was very deep within the psychology of Mon Mothma on Andor.

Do you get the sense that Lucasfilm isn’t done with your Mon Motha just yet? 

Oh, they might’ve had enough for a while. I do have quite a bit of screen time on Andor in a way that I’ve never had before. Usually, she comes in and lets you know what’s happening, and then she sends people off on a mission. So they really gave story and narrative space to this woman this time. But I’ve learned over the years to be genuinely surprised and to say, “I don’t know,” and, “Never say never.” I hope that the work we have done on Andor is of value to not just her as a character, but to Star Wars and Lucasfilm in general. I hope that what we’ve done only adds to that texture or those spices.

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Andor season two’s three-episode premiere is now streaming on Disney+.