? SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox ? Interestingly, while that's one of O'Reilly's final scenes shown on Andor proper, it was not the last scene she filmed on the series. That was another quite literal full-circle moment in Mon's daughter's wedding. As O'Reilly tells Parade, the theme of circles is quite prevalent throughout the proceedings, from the layout of each traditional room on Chandrila to the dance floor at the reception. And it's the latter that leads to arguably Mon's most viral moment in all of Andor as, after marrying her daughter away out of pure politics and sending her childhood friend Tay (Ben Miles) off to his death, she takes to the center, spinning around with wild abandon."When the scripts arrived, the dance sequence was really an idea," O'Reilly says. "And I remember [series creator Tony Gilroy] had written, 'She spins and spins and spins like a whirling dervish.' The idea was that it was about somehow getting inside the chaos of her head." And the chaos was spilling out of her in multiple ways, as she later revealed that the immense amount of spinning had her having to excuse herself from the heat of the moment at one point to get sick off-set.Read on for our full interview with Genevieve O'Reilly, including her take on Mon Mothma's iconic speech to the Senate, and finally getting to share the screen with Cassian Andor.
Andor Season 2 adopted a unique structure to its timeline. Essentially, we checked in with Mon Mothma and the rest of the characters for a smidge of time every three episodes, then tooka yearlong break. How did that affect the way you approached things compared to Season 1?It's such an interesting structure. I'd never done anything like that before. Obviously, when you're filming, you always kind of drop into a moment. But with long-form television, you often take the character from one moment to the next. You're carrying the audience with you through a story. But it really felt like we were making four little films. Because you dropped in on a moment in a life, a cross-section of a life. So, [every] three episodes, there was, like you said, a year in between. And then you dive into a really specific moment in the character. So at first I thought it was going to be a real challenge. I was like, "Okay, you need to pay attention, you need to be aware." Actually, it was really liberating, because it allowed for a real specificity of character. You could take swings and jumps and moves because the negative space allowed it. I think what is so brilliant about Season 2 of Andor is [that] you learn so much because it jumps you. The character informs you where they are, what's going on and the drama of that moment.Did you ever consult with Tony Gilroy and the writers about what Mon was doing during that time between batches? It's interesting, for example, that when the hit is put out on Tay, his death happens entirely off-screen.Actually, the writers do a lot of the work for you. Because we end Season 1 where there is this proposal. And then we arrive in Season 2, and it's the wedding. So that doesn't take a great leap of imagination. Then we have Tay get taken off with Cinta in the car. And it's alluded to that she is the assassin, so you know she's going to kill him, and that Mon has been tacitly responsible for that death. The next time you see her is a year later in work mode. And what was interesting to me is actually, as humans, how we move, how we evolve, how we digest things. So that was going to come out later on, and you then see it much later, when she talks to Lutheran about the guilt she has carried her whole life. But I love that the piece doesn't dwell on that, that we see the working animal that is Mon Mothma focused on gathering votes, and then you only learn later that this has been living and breathing inside her. And so he does a lot of the work for you. He creates layers, and that allows for an actor to actually be really in the moment. "What am I doing right now? What is the specificity of right now?" It was really liberating.That's very well put. It's the irony that, despite how confining it is for these three episodes to only be a slice of an entire year, it gives you the freedom to fill in so many of the blanks.And Mon Mothma in particular, because, in any given moment, she has to hold so much and so she has to be many different things to many different people. You see her work those rooms. You see her wear the face of the Empire. You see her wear the face ofher culture. In Episodes 1, 2 and 3, when you see her in her family, within that very orthodox culture, you see her able to manage that, able to hold that. So she is a very present character, if that makes sense. She's very devoted to how she can be useful and brilliant in any given moment.You talk about Mon Mothma holding onto a lot. Let's talk about a moment where she let loose. What were your thoughts when you first saw that dance scene at the wedding?It was extraordinary. I remember receiving those scripts and, with Tony and the writers and how they work, some of the scenes will be there from the very beginning, completely written, and some of them will be just a title of a scene that they're then continually working on. And Tony will talk to me about, and we'll kind of, they take a tiny bit longer. The genesis is there, but they take a bit longer before they are fully felt. And so when the scripts arrived, the dance sequence was really an idea. And I remember he had written, "She spins and spins and spins like a whirling dervish." The idea was that it was about somehow getting inside the chaos of her head, because, of course, she has agreed to Tay being murdered at that point by Luthen. I think she's dancing and moving and to stop herself from screaming. And what was really interesting to me as an actor was to make sure we had never, ever seen this woman do anything like this before, that we could see a version of Mon Mothma that was revealing in a brand new way. And so we did lots of work with a choreographer who was also doing all that, all the wedding sequence. There was that very traditional dance, and then there was his big kind of youth culture moment. And they were also working within the other scenes of the weddings. From earlier on, you might remember that a lot of it included circles. The idea of circles within orthodoxy. And actually, a lot of those rooms were circular. So when we came to really work on those dance pieces, our extraordinary, gifted director, Ari Kleiman and Christoph, who was our DP, got inside.So all the supporting artists were working in concentric circles around me. And we had this idea that she could move in and out. And the closer she gets to the center, the more she lets go, the more it becomes something carnal, or something very dark. She's such a cerebral character. She's so dexterous with how she works cerebrally. And to just strip that away and to get her to just absolutely lose it. I had so much fun, Mike.Was there a song they played on set to get you in the dancing mood?We were using Nicholas Britell's theme. Because, of course, that piece of music had been in Season 1, in, I think, the brothel scene, and in one of Mon's parties, actually, I think. So we had that. And then they kind of rejigged it and created this huge dance hit, and we played it. And we had hundreds of those supporting artists in all those magnificent costumes by Michael Wilkinson. And it was very hot. We were filming it in, I think maybe July or something. And then, actually, I've just remembered we cut it because the strike was called. And then we came back. So you're in Ibiza, and there's this huge heat...And I can imagine coming back after such a long time off felt cathartic in and of itself. Something to dance about!Actually, that was my last day on Andor. Because we had the wedding, the way we filmed it, Episodes 1, 2 and 3 were actually the final pieces we shot. And so they were the ones where the strike broke, so that, when we came back, it was that big wedding set piece. And so my final day on Andor was eventually getting to do that huge, huge dance piece. And we spent hours and hours. And at one point, I had to go outside and throw up because there was so much turning and spinning. I remember Tony coming in, and I said, "I'm so sorry. I've got to go." [Laughs.]
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