Maxance Vincent
Twenty years after her first appearance in Revenge of the Sith, Genevieve O’Reilly remains in disbelief that she would get to further develop Mon Mothma in different Star Wars titles over the years, and, most thrillingly, in the Disney+ series Andor, whose final season just finished airing on the streaming service. As she tells Awards Radar during a virtual Zoom press day, “I had the great fortune of playing this woman in different moments of her life and at different moments of my life for over twenty years. The idea that now I would have the opportunity to wrestle, play, and discover such an intricate, extraordinary, dexterous, brave, fragile woman has been a beautiful surprise and a gift to me as an actor.”
O’Reilly knew she was a part of something special while reading the screenplay, stating that she could “ feel the ambition of the piece. I could feel the ambition of everyone around in every department, particularly for season two. Perhaps we knew that because we were all finishing together. We all wanted to reach as far as we possibly could, both individually and as a collective. However, when I received those scripts, it didn’t just feel special, but it felt important.”
Of course, the big moment for Mon Mothma’s arc in the second season is the speech that she gives in the ninth episode, which will likely stand the test of time as one of the most powerful scenes in Star Wars history. In approaching such a scene like this, O’Reilly explains that she had known the speech was coming for a long time, and it felt like “the crux of who the woman is. It allowed us an opportunity to see a character who doesn’t ever pick up a blaster and doesn’t ever hop in a fighter ship. She is effective for the rebellion and the resistance just by using her voice. Diplomacy first, but what you see in the speech is her superpower, which is her voice, and that was very important to me.
I was very grateful that Tony Gilroy and Dan Gilroy, who wrote that episode, really gave narrative space and screen time to that moment and me, as an actor, by happenstance. What makes this speech so special is also what is layered before it. You understand the complexity of that moment. You understand the fear of the environment. You understand that she is alone, that the rebellion isn’t straightforward, that what was an ally now can be feared. There’s a beautiful scene with Luthen at the beginning of that episode, which really shows these prickly allies that have always needed each other, cognizant of the idea that they can no longer go forward together.
There are fissures all the way through episode nine. The tectonic plates of resistance are moving underneath the whole episode. In fact, there’s the bit before, which I think is really important, is for her to be completely alone in that chamber. She’s just a single, lonely woman. Moments like that allow us to recognize ourselves and understand that it is not easy. We, as viewers, understand that courage is required. We understand the risk. We understand that she is taking every step closer to setting fire to her whole life.
Therefore, when you get to the speech, there is already a tinderbox of flames around. I hope people feel that as they watch it, the speech itself, getting to give that, I hope, will be one of the most memorable experiences of my whole life as an actor.”
With a show like Andor, there is a lot to talk about, and there’s plenty more you can get out of our interview with Genevieve O’Reilly by listening to the full conversation below:
[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]
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