The Writer’s Guild strike has taken its toll on a lot of creative people in Hollywood. And we’re not just talking about the hot sidewalks writers and other guild members have been canvassing over the past few months. There are showrunners, like Tony Gilroy, who had to step away from production on programs years in the making with months left of filming. The writer and executive producer of “Andor” used today as a “thank you” to all the Television Academy members who supported the critically acclaimed “Star Wars” universe series. And with eight nominations including Outstanding Drama Series, Gilroy had a lot to celebrate as Hollywood waited for news of another guild, SAG-AFTRA, potentially going on strike as well.
READ MORE: Emmy Nominations 2023: Snubs and Surprises include “Yellowstone,” Rachel Weisz, “Jury Duty” and more
“I guess the big one is to be included in the top shows,” Gilroy says. “I mean, I think that’s big, to be included in that class of must-see shows i. That’s where you want to be. I guess that’s the one that matters the most, and it’s also the one that’s the biggest umbrella. Despite the people that might go up or say thank you to something, I mean, it really represents all the people that have been on this show from the beginning. It’s kind of the most inclusive award, so that’s the one that meant the most.”
The Peabody Award-winning series may not have gotten any actor’s branch support (we’re still smarting over snubs for Diego Luna and Genevive O’Reilly) but Benjamin Caron landed a Directing For A Drama Series nom, Beau Williamson for Writing For A Drama Series, contemporary American maestro Nicholas Britell earned Original Score and Main Title nominations, Damián García led the Cinematography field, and the Lucasfilm production took Visual Effects and Sound Editing as well.
Despite it being a prequel to the acclaimed 2016 movie “Rogue One,” a “Star Wars” show without lightsabers, Darth Vader, or a Baby Yoda was definitely out of the box for Disney. Gilroy says making the show in a cone of silence partially during COVID restrictions, a closed London set, and the “secrecy” baked into a “Star Wars” production often had his producing crew wondering if they were going down the right track.
“I mean, nobody saw the show. There are no focus groups,” Gilroy reveals. “The show is so huge and so complicated, and the way we shoot it is so complicated, it’s difficult to mess with it in any sense. Our audience was really small, so we didn’t really have any clue what to expect about this enormous gamble that everybody had made, Disney, and Lucasfilm, and all of us. When we released it, we were pretty nervous about what would happen. We felt good about it, but we had no frame of reference for what might happen. It’s been an incredibly affirming experience, and it’s been a real accelerator to everybody’s energy.”
In fact, the Disney execs who first realized how special “Andor” was just happened to be – wait for it – the marketing department.
“The Disney marketing team was the first people who actually saw the show and gave us confidence,” Gilroy reveals. “They’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ But he last 10 months has been incredible, it’s everything you would hope for. The people are picking up on your show and they’re going deep with it, and some people are incredibly passionate about it, picking up on every nuance, and convincing other people to watch it. As you know, the ‘Star Wars’ community was going to show up for the show no matter what, but the ask here was to try to really open new lanes and try to bring in a new audience. That’s a very difficult thing to do. All of this helps, so it’s just been, it’s what you hope for.”
Gilroy says it was Luna, executive producer Sanna Wholenberg and his brother John Gilroy, a co-producer, who first realized the series was clicking beyond the core “Star Wars” audience.
“We got to week five, week six, and we started just seeing what people were commenting about, and how deep people were going into the complexities of the show,” Gilroy remembers. “There were so many thought pieces and political pieces, just the depth of the criticism was everything that you’re always yearning for. I think about week five or six, we just really looked at each other and went, ‘Oh my God, this is really landing in the way that we thought would take forever, and here it is right away’”
But, Gilroy notes, “There are still people who won’t watch it though. Hopefully, I think the best thing about today is that it’s a pleasing thing to be able to bring back to Disney and Lucasfilm who assembled so much on this show to say, ‘Hey, here’s a positive thing to affirm your bet.’”
And maybe convince some naysayers to watch the show before the second and final season arrives next summer. “Andor” is available on Disney+.