Diego Luna on the challenges of Andor season 2 now that the first season has become so critically acclaimed.
I don’t think many of us were expecting Andor to be as fantastic as it was, but the acclaim for the first season of the Star Wars series was incredible. With production of Andor season 2 now underway, the cast and crew are facing the pressure of living up to the first season.
It’s nice to be loved, but Diego Luna told THR that the positive reception isn’t necessarily making them more confident while shooting the new season. “What happened with season one comes with a lot of responsibility, and Tony Gillroy is the kind of writer that won’t let us just relax and celebrate,” Luna said. “Tony and his whole team are bringing it. They’re bringing more and more challenges into the mix, and structurally, it’s different. So I don’t think we are confident; I think we are just enjoying it in a way that we didn’t enjoy the first season.” Luna added that while the first season was shot during the worst times of the pandemic, the atmosphere on Andor season 2 is a little more relaxed, “So we are enjoying [it] in a different way.“
Despite the challenges of the first season, the actor had a feeling that the series wasn’t going to be seen… simply because of how perfectly everything was going, especially when compared to the Rogue One movie. “I always had a feeling that this wasn’t gonna see the light [of day] till it did. (Laughs.) I kept going, ‘This is too perfect. This is working,’” Luna said. “The whole idea, I always thought, ‘That’s impossible.’ Throughout the whole process, we did exactly what we thought was best. We never prioritized anything but the show. The writing took the time it needed to take, and we got the best cast you can have. So everything just kept getting better and better, and I always had the feeling that something had to go wrong. But it didn’t. We had the freedom and the support of Disney and Lucas[film]. We had the confidence of Kathy [Kennedy] behind the show.“
Andor season 2 will be flashing forward and cover a lot more ground than the first season. The conclusion of the first season found Cassian committing himself to the Rebels, but he still has a long journey ahead of him. “He says he wants to be a part of the Rebellion, but I’m not sure if he knows what that means yet,” Luna explained. “He’s basically saying, ‘I want to speak the language,’ but now he has to learn it. And so it’s going to take longer. We’re gonna go for four years [in season two], and when we find him, he’s so far away from where we left him at the end of season one. He’s basically the guy to trust for something like that mission.“
The second season of Andor is expected to launch on Disney+ in August 2024.