Andor: The Tony Gilroy Interview

"I have friends everywhere."

In this special episode, we’re joined by Tony Gilroy, the creative force behind the electrifying Star Wars series Andor. Critics and activists on the frontlines in America have praised Andor for its powerful portrayal of resistance, and with Season 2 up for 14 Emmy Awards, it’s clear this is no ordinary space opera. Gilroy’s vision grounds the story in centuries of history, showing us what it means to resist empire in all its brutality. Andor is an urgent guide for Americans today. 

For more than three decades, Gilroy has been shaping modern cinema with blockbusters and fearless storytelling. He gave us Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and wrote and directed the critically acclaimed political thriller Michael Clayton, which earned him Oscar nominations for both screenplay and direction. His credits include Armageddon and the first four entries of the Bourne series (in which he directed the fourth), Devil's Advocate, Dolores Claiborne, The Cutting Edge, State of Play, and many, many other films. 

The son of World War II veteran and Tony and Pulitzer-winning playwright and filmmaker Frank Gilroy, and brother to acclaimed film editor John Gilroy and Oscar-nominated writer-director Dan Gilroy (an Emmy-nominated writer on Andor), Tony Gilroy doesn’t just tell stories: he builds immersive worlds where power, corruption, and resistance collide, worlds that help us make sense of our own. We’re thrilled to welcome him to Gaslit Nation to discuss this dark chapter in America’s history and, through his art, remind us of the courage it takes to stand and fight back.

For Gaslit Nation listeners who want the full breakdown of the convicted felon/war criminal distraction circus and what comes next for the Free World, our latest salon digs into the Putin-Trump gaslighting sideshow in Alaska and how the war can actually end. You can watch the recording at Patreon.com/Gaslit. Thank you to everyone who makes our independent journalism possible!

Don’t miss Monday’s salon at 4pm ET, only on Patreon, where we’ll dive into two powerful films about resisting dictatorship: The Lives of Others and I’m Still Here.  The Lives of Others tells the haunting story of artists defying the East German Stasi, while I’m Still Here tells the story of a woman whose husband is disappeared by Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s, and how she transforms her country for the better. 

These two films are reminders that light will always defeat darkness: it’s just a matter of time, and collective courage and defiance. 

Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

Trailer: Andor (Season 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE4wxt70aUM

Andor Clip featured in episode: “You’re coming home to yourself.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rugpDpd0aV4

'The world is behaving irrationally' - Putin's warm welcome gets cold reaction in Ukraine https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4mj4011lo

Kremlin critics say Russia is targeting its foes abroad with killings, poisonings and harassment https://apnews.com/article/russia-attacks-poisoning-killing-litvinenko-skripal-5ddda40fd910fe3f8358ea89cb0c49f1?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

Gaslit Nation Action Guide: https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/action-guide

Movie clip (00:06):

We're in a war. You want to fight or you want to win?

(00:33):

[Laughs] What a swell party this is.

(01:18):

Remember this moment. You're here. You're right here, and you're ready to fight.

Andrea Chalupa (01:29):

Light will always defeat darkness. It's only a matter time and our collective courage and defiance, we'll get there. We have no other choice. In this special episode, we're joined by Tony Gilroy, the creative force behind the electrifying Star Wars series, Andor.

(01:44):

Critics and activists on the front lines in America have praised Andor for it's powerful portrayal of resistance. And was season two up for 14 Emmy awards. It's clear this is no ordinary space opera. Gilroy's vision grounds the story in centuries of history showing us what it means to resist empire in all its brutality. Andor is an urgent guide for us today here in America. For more than three decades, Tony Gilroy has been shaping modern cinema with blockbusters and fearless storytelling. He gave us Rogue One, a Star Wars story and wrote and directed the critically acclaimed political thriller, Michael Clayton, which earned him Oscar nominations for both screenplay and direction. His credits include Armageddon and the first four entries of the Bourne series in which he directed the fourth Devil's Advocate, Dolores Claiborne, the Cutting Edge, which was a ice skating romantic film that I loved watching growing up, State of Play and many, many other films. Here's a clip from Andor: Season 2 featuring actor Diego Luna as Cassian Andor.

Niya (Rachelle Diedericks) (03:03):

If I die tonight, was it worth it? You've done this before. You must have thought about it.

Cassian (Diego Luna) (03:13):

This makes it worth it. This right now, being with you, being here at the moment, you step into the circle, look at me. You made this decision long ago. The empire cannot win. You'll never feel right unless you are doing what you can to stop them. You're coming home to yourself. You've become more than your fear. Let that protect you.

Niya (Rachelle Diedericks) (03:52):

Thank you.

Andrea Chalupa (03:53):

I was on vacation and I was going on a deep dive researching Ticus and his massive slave revolt against the mighty Roman Empire, and I get an email asking if I want to interview Tony Gilroy, the creator of Andor. And I said, I mean, absolutely yes. So we've had on the show in recent weeks, Erin Reed, who is of course on the front lines of protecting trans lives. She's based in Montana, one of the reddest of the red states. We've had so many activists come on the show and friends of mine who are organizing major protests like the Tesla take down and so on, who've cited Andor as giving them life right now. How does it feel to have made a series that's creating such a massive cultural impact to the point of really being an oxygen mask for so many lives that are in the crossfire of the crisis in America?

Tony Gilroy (04:50):

It feels really, it's an unexpected affirmation. It's very satisfying to a lot of people that worked on the show, how events have become more in sync with the show. We've been shocked by that ourselves. We had to be very careful as we were starting out about not ghettoizing our audience or not losing anybody by being too overtly political. I would be lying if I didn't say that. I'm taking great satisfaction. We went to go to no kings and saying all the, I have friends everywhere, signs that we saw everywhere. You want to feel like you can do something and you want to feel like you want, can contribute in some substantial way, and you have all these beliefs and it seems so difficult, and particularly if you're a creative person and your life is essentially using projects to hide out in as a way of hiding out. And I find it a real gift that I've been able to hide out in this show for the last five years. And at the same time, I'm able to actually have some small effect on the things that you're talking about. It is shocking to me.

Andrea Chalupa (05:46):

I think what's so satisfying is that in Andor you see a disciplined resistance, you see people sacrificing their lives for planting seeds of hope they may never ever see bloom. And so for you, in terms of all the deep dive in the historical research that you've done, we're recording this conversation just days after convicted felon Trump and war criminal Putin met on a red carpet in Alaska. Lethally backhanding each other, the good old friends that they are. So I think many of our longtime listeners, as much as they've been preparing for this moment, because we talk about all these issues on this show, it's still shocking to see this play out. So in terms of the massive deep dive you've done on history, what is giving you hope? Do you look at guys like, thugs like Putin and Trump and think actually history is on our side, progress is on our side. We're ultimately going to prevail. How are you feeling in this moment?

Tony Gilroy (06:45):

Wow. Well, it's hard to find hope. I have to say that I'm, I mean the show, well, let me say it this way. I've been stunned by everything that's happened. I don't think there's a word that we have in English anymore that describes a level of incredulity that's been just epic for the past several years and certainly since the reelection. I want to be hopeful. I'm shocked at the muffled response. I'm shocked at the lack of resistance. I really thought, I thought, well, the No Kings thing. I thought, well, it's kind of a little bit disorganized and a little bit anemic, but it's a spark and it's going to catch on and this is going to happen every week. And the moment that people get out and realize and have an opportunity to raise their voice, they're going to. I think we've all been disappointed. I have been.

(07:34):

I think that as lame and ignorant and ham-handed it as the administration is in many ways, there is someone there who is pulling back just enough. I mean, I thought there would be, I thought when the ICE raid started in LA, I thought we were weeks away from having a Kent State incident that would ignite a larger protest. Well, they backed off, didn't they? Slightly. And maybe they backed off because everybody realized there's going to be nobody to do the laundry and there's going to be nobody to fix your car and there's going to be nobody to clean your house and nobody to pack your meat. A lot of calls, I'm sure from a lot of red state donors came in, take me off the list. But someone else, I think also said, if we go too far here and this gets too heated, we're going to be in trouble. But I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting for that big move. I'm still waiting for people to rise up and say, we've had enough, aren't you?

Andrea Chalupa (08:31):

Yeah, I think it's sad. It's people are settling in to the new normal and they're just trying to live their lives. It's almost like an emotional exhaustion. The gas lighting is taking effect. And I think there's this false sense of well get him in the midterms by our leadership.

Tony Gilroy (08:49):

I suppose. So there's a passage that in the very first season where this character Nemik and he's written a manifesto. He has

Andrea Chalupa (08:58):

Love him!

Tony Gilroy (08:59):

One of the things he says is one of the tricks is that the pace of atrocities is so constant and rapid that you can't concentrate on any one thing. I had that feeling. I can remember saying that five, six years ago. It's just, it's like you're on a highway and cars are crashing around you. There's so many things that are flying off the highway and flying by. You don't even have a chance to stop and save anybody or talk about it or call anybody, or it's just an onslaught of minor atrocities and major atrocities and violations. And it's, the pace of it is overwhelming, but I dunno what it's going to take, I dunno what it's going to take for people to go out. It's scary what it might take for people to go out, I don't know, relying on the midterms. I don't have any faith that we're going to have an accurate election ever again. And I certainly think that they've set up the mechanism whereby if they feel that they're in trouble, that something can come up and we can have emergency powers and elections can be postponed temporarily. I mean, I don't think that any of that's out of the realm of possibility anymore. I really don't. Things that were inconceivable 18 months ago are now very, very seem very possible.

Andrea Chalupa (10:10):

So Marco Rubio, whose family escaped the dictatorship in Cuba, he was always a staunch supporter of Ukraine and standing up against Putin. And he's now going on the talk shows saying the war on Ukraine doesn't matter to us. Why would it America first sounding very much even worse than Chamberlain when Hitler was seizing Czechoslovakia and so on. And it is just what Americans have to understand is when Trump stood on that red carpet with Putin, that was a declaration that we're not going to have free and fair elections again. They're going to make sure of it. But one thing I want to point out, because I think about this all the time, is in Venezuela, a dictatorship, people voted anyway, they knew their elections were stolen. Pre-stolen, they knew Maduro would be the winner, but they voted in such large numbers anyway, and they had a shadow vote count where they would have these exit polls to basically say he's illegitimate. So I think voting is still important. So I wanted to stress that.

Tony Gilroy (11:09):

Absolutely. No, I mean absolutely. But I just, a whole other volume of political fascist atrocities is being opened right now and someone's pulling that book off the shelf and someone's tuning up that piano and we're moving in the book that was at the top shelf with the dust on it that no one thought anyone was ever going to pull down is now on the table. And whether we start singing out of that, I don't know. It is disturbing. It drove me crazy. The invasion of Iraq to me just broke me. I was so adamantly against it and for all the reasons I was so angry about the variety of people and institutions, one of which the New York Times I had vaguely trusted in that led us there, the New York Times and the Christian Coalition and the Likud government and taking us, walking us into this disaster.

(12:11):

And one of the most annoying things of all was there was a protest in New York. There was six, 700,000 people out there. It was the largest protest I've ever seen or ever imagined. I mean, it was massive. It was cold. People went out. It was 600,000 people on the street in New York City to protest. You can't read anything about it. The Times barely covered it. It was as if it never happened, and we can't even get close to that right now. So, I don't know. I want to be hopeful. I guess I want to be more scary than hopeful. I guess at this point.

Andrea Chalupa (12:40):

Are you seeing a chill in the entertainment industry? Are there projects that would've been green lit before that aren't because they might be seen as ruffling some feathers?

Tony Gilroy (12:50):

Well, I mean, late night is what happened to Colbert. Look, what's the pressure that's being put on Kimmel? Look at the pressure they're going to put on all these, and now what's one of the absolute playbooks of fascism? Nationalize the industries. Well, there's different ways of nationalizing industries. You can just straight ahead do a Mussolini and just take 'em over. Or you can control them in other ways and bully them and bribe them and not approve their mergers and put heavy scrutiny on them or remove all examination of their practices. So there's all kinds of ways of nationalizing the industries. We've heard, I mean, one of the things that people need to know I think is that, so Colbert goes down, so in the first blush of it, it's, oh my God, Trump is taking down Colbert and this is all political and then there's a story that follows up.

(13:37):

Always always a financial loser. It was always losing money. It'd always lost money. It always looked $40 million for CBS, and they probably did operate at what would be on paper a black and white deficit of some sort. That's not why those shows are there. Those shows don't exist for that profit center. They exist to sell things. What Colbert does every night is selling movies and television shows. It is a product placement exercise. People come out and sell their hit song. They do the value that it has, ands all of that $40 million for CBS, for Peacock, whatever they are for Paramount.

(14:11):

So the economic decision is a false representation. There is, yeah. So go after them. Who's been braver than Jimmy Kimmel? I listen to those, I get up in the morning. I listen to those two monologues first thing in the morning. I just pop 'em up and man, he's just been, I mean, it's incredible what he's been doing. He's coming back from vacation. What's the world he's going to walk into? Crazy. I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen any restriction on projects, but it is impossible to anticipate that it wouldn't be there. Of course, it's just, it's in the air. It's atmospheric.

Andrea Chalupa (14:42):

America has been here before with Joe McCarthy, and we got through it. Do you think this is just another dark, dark, very dark chapter in our history?

Tony Gilroy (14:53):

I don't know. I've been saying this a lot. I've said this before, so I'm repeating myself in some sense. I did this movie Michael Clayton, when I did Michael Clayton, and it came out of, I think my energy for it came out of my feelings about Iraq. I didn't put that in the movie, but my energy was there for that. But I was fascinated by people who know they're doing the wrong thing. You're doing the wrong, that the consequences are epic or certainly disastrous, you know that the decision you're going to make is not necessarily going to change the amount of food on your table or where you live. It's not an existential rationale that you're doing it. It's not a Sophie's choice where I either live or die and people doing the wrong thing. I'm just fascinated when people do the wrong thing when they don't have to.

(15:41):

And I worked on that in that movie. I realized when I went out to sell the movie that that's one of the things I had been working on. I think it's a common theme in all the stuff that I've done. I think it's very present in Andor, but it goes directly to what you're talking about. Marco Rubio isn't just an immigrant. Marco Rubio was also shamed. His manhood was shamed. He was publicly humiliated and he's there. He knows what he's doing is completely wrong. I mean, think of we could spend the next 15 minutes listening to all the people that we know that are doing things that they know are wrong, that violates everything that they did before. What is this new level of compliance? What is this culture-wide acquiescence that we're seeing? It's like my fear that was sort of atomized before is coalesced into this massive cultural knee bowing. I don't get it. I don't understand it.

Andrea Chalupa (16:36):

It's all pigs at the trough. They're all getting their big slice. Putin's court of oligarchs are some of the wealth. Their combined wealth is massive.

Tony Gilroy (16:44):

It's a little different because he'll actually just throw you out the window if you don't comply. I mean, there's an element there. I think that goes past what I'm saying. I'm talking about people who know where their next meal is. Why does Tim Cook go to the White House and present a piece of tin to this chump? I mean, why do I once saw there was someone really did pin down Lindsey Graham at one point and say, man, what is? How do you? And their analysis, just the need for relevancy, the need to stay relevant, lack of relevancy. I don't know if it's social media. The lack of relevancy means you're dead in a way. There's some new existential threat that goes beyond keeping your family fed and warm and having water. It seems that as my new theory is that there's some aspect of social media and digital living that makes relevancy equal to, makes it a basic need. Does that make sense?

Andrea Chalupa (17:39):

Yeah. They're addicted to power and attention and being in the center of everything.

Tony Gilroy (17:44):

I don't know how to explain it. I can't remember it ever taking place anywhere historically that I can think of on this scale. Because he is not ruling absolutely. People are not coming to your house and putting a gun to your head and saying

Andrea Chalupa (17:58):

Not yet.

Tony Gilroy (17:58):

Not yet. No. But he hasn't had to. He hasn't had to.

Andrea Chalupa (18:01):

Right. They're doing it willingly. So the question to you, you've done all this massive research. You have to leave us with something in terms of what did you see in terms of strategy, the resistance, the revolutions that you've studied, really shocked you, surprised you and has stayed with you?

Tony Gilroy (18:20):

Courage is really within us. We are the end result we're the survivors of survivors. We're the people who've survived. So we have all kinds of genetic, biological makeup has a lot of negative things that made us survivors, but it also has a great deal of courage. And I think the courage is something that gets activated in people that they don't even know is there. And then it becomes an appetite. And I think that one of the things that we really learned on the show over five years, and because it's the vocabulary show is really had to dig deep because you have to be very empathetic when you're writing a show like this to live through all these characters and you have to really feel it is what it really feels like. The varieties of courage, the way it can grow, the way it can be infectious to other people, the way courage is infectious, the ways of inspiring other people and the legitimate feeling of satisfaction you feel when you write it.

(19:12):

You could feel the moments that you've had in your own personal life when you do something right and it doesn't benefit you. There's a feeling there's a chemical that goes off. That's a very satisfying chemical. And it can be when people get that in their nose and people get addicted to that and cultures get addicted to that. And I think our courage has been sleeping. I think our courage has been ignored. I think it's back in the pantry, and I am really hopeful that as it gets out and people start to smell it again and feel it again and realize how satisfying it is to partake of it and to share it with somebody else and to teach their children, to remind their children that I also think that the other thing I'm hopeful about is that the whole idea of progressivism or liberalism or decency is somehow not tough.

(20:01):

I just flat out reject that. I grew up in an entirely, I grew up in an highly testosterone environment and my father was just, he was a World War II vet. He was a writer. He came from the Bronx. He was a gambler. He, I'm so happy my father did not live to see Trump. He could not have been a tougher progressive in the world. That's the world I grew up, and I miss that. I hate the fact that, and yeah, I hate the fact that masculinity has been co-opted by politics. I can't stand it. I want that back. I think the human spirit has leaked through everything that's been thrown in its way so far. Somehow behavior, human behavior, empathy, human connection manages to rust out the worst things that have been thrown in front of it. I pray with whatever my pagan prayers, whatever candles I can light that I'll live to see just a glimmer of that, at least that start to take place here. I really, I yearn for it. That's my hope.

Andrea Chalupa (21:03):

You and your brothers are all extraordinarily creative, prolific. What advice did your dad give you growing up that serves that?

Tony Gilroy (21:11):

He was? I mean, I'll tell you, I think we're in post ideological state here. I don't think we have the luxury of talking about politics. I don't think this is a nonpolitical moment we're in, and I get in all these conversations where people are trying to drag me into his Andor left or right, or it's not. The moment we're in historically right now is literally we're going to have to fight to get our way back to a conversation about ideology. This is strictly about decency. Just basic fucking decency. How people, what's the right thing to do and civility and citizenship. My father was really rough and tumble and all that, but he was the most scrupulously honest and the most scrupulously dedicated to that concept of civic honesty. And this is how you are a citizen. This is how you are a member of a community.

(22:04):

This is what it takes. We disagree, whatever the thing happens, but you know what? There's a flood. Let's get sandbags. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's be good to each other. If I owe you money, I owe you money. I'm not going to lie. It's just basic decency and it's all been corrupted. That's all. I mean, I don't see Trump as ideological in any sense. I think he's just the biggest shapeshifter ever. I think he'd do anything. But I think the embrace of cruelty and the embrace of indecency and just the sheer flat out grifty, shifty thieving of the whole thing. It's just astonishing

Andrea Chalupa (22:44):

Deliberately so. So question for you about the power of art and creativity. We talk about that a lot with our listeners on the show, but now is the time to fight for your mind, make art, be good with your intuition, develop your intuition in this age of collective gaslighting. That's how we win. You begin with it. Could you share with us some of your insights? What do you do? What helps you develop your intuition and stay creative?

Tony Gilroy (23:08):

Stay creative? I don't have to worry about that part of my life. I mean, it's just baked into me. It is, again, almost not even being creative. I just have to be making things. That's in my nature. And I think my brothers have the same thing. I think it comes from, I don't know if our mother was really into teaching us how to do all kinds of different things. I think a lot of it comes from her, but none of us are happy if we're not making things. I know a lot of people like that, and I have to be making something every day. I have to have something I to make or it's not really a good day for me. So it can be large. It could be a show, it could be something small. It could be making a stone wall. It just have to be making something.

(23:47):

I'm not a good example, I think, because that's why I said in the beginning, the show is so satisfying because it was a place for me to hide out. It's a maximally imaginative experience to make a show like this. It's just every single day for five years your using every aspect of your imagination, whether it's on clothes or hair or a scene or casting or a design or where are we or inventing languages. Every single thing has to be, so you're just maximally engaged. And it'd be very easy for me to skim the news, stay out of, not get dragged down and stay in my fantasy place all this time. The fact that I could do that and reap the benefit of some sort of resonance for people and have it mean something is really an unexpected gift. It goes back to your very first question. I pay attention. I try to pay attention to the story. I try not to. There's not too many news sources that I value anymore. It's hard to read the New York Times and for the truth anymore, I think, I don't know. I scam around. I try to, but I don't dwell. But I think I'm like a lot of people. I'm waiting for someone to tell me to go out and do something.

Andrea Chalupa (24:54):

Well, we used Andor quotes to drive our listeners on social media to the Gaslit Nation action guide on gaslit nation pod.com, where there's a whole list of things large and smaller people can be doing right now. And every week we featured a new Andor quote and we're like, gaslit nation pod.com action guide. So there's a lot that we all can be doing. And your show, I think is so satisfying because we do see a driven, disciplined resistance, and we do see an empire that is a victim of its own arrogance and was caught off guard. And so we will have that dynamic playing out again because I think Trump thinks he is going to be the next Putin. He does think he's going to deny us our right to vote. We're going to overwhelm them in the polling place.

Tony Gilroy (25:43):

I hope so. Yes.

Andrea Chalupa (25:44):

Yeah. But there's a lot we can be doing between now and then. So please, everyone go to gas don nation pod.com. Check out the action guide on the homepage watch Andor if you haven't yet, because it is deeply spiritually satisfying.

Tony Gilroy (25:56):

Thank you so much. And I do. I mean, we have friends everywhere.

Andrea Chalupa (25:59):

We absolutely do. Only one way out.

Tony Gilroy (26:02):

Good luck to us both. I'll be watching. I'll be,

Andrea Chalupa (26:05):

I'll see you at a protest, totally

Tony Gilroy (26:06):

I'm adding it to my favorites. It's really nice to meet you.

Movie clip (26:16):

We're in a war. You want to fight, or you want to win?

(26:28):

[Laughs] What a swell party this is.

(27:27):

Remember this moment. You're here. You're right here, and you're ready to fight.