Curated by the IndieWire Crafts team, Craft Considerations is a platform for filmmakers to talk about recent work we think is worthy of recognition. In collaboration with Disney, for this edition, we look at how costume desIgn and acting decoded a thrilling story from what we already knew about ‘Andor’.
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The most iconic shot from the original ‘Star Wars’ is of a young man watching the (binary) sunset, wanting more out of life. But the galaxy is a big, big place. The first of many things creator Tony Gilroy did to expand upon this with “Andor,” the prequel series for one of the “Rogue One” main characters, was to turn his camera to a young man who gazes at the frightening symmetry of the ‘Empire. , longing for family, security and home. Instead, he finds the Rebel Alliance.
“From the beginning, there was something about the character that was very interesting for me to play, which was this idea of him coming from somewhere else,” actor Diego Luna, who plays lead character Cassian Andor, told IndieWire. . “He is someone who has been forced to migrate, who is a refugee. He had to start his life from scratch, and probably not just once. And now with ‘Andor’, Tony has taken it to the next level.
In the videos below, Luna and costume designer Michael Wilkinson discuss how they used the tangible details of Gilroy’s vision for the Empire to chart Cassian’s transformation from a small-time smuggler into a nascent rebel spy; and, through his story, to tell a larger story of how oppression creates a wave of opposition that will, one day, stifle tyranny.
Looking for the beginning of Cassian
Luna, of course, had her own idea of who Cassian was and where she came from during the filming of “Rogue One.” Impossible not to think about how and why there is a character that does not sound or look like the other Nerf Herders of the Rebel Alliance. “Andor,” then, was not just a gift for fleshing out Cassian’s backstory, but the ability to create a level of detail that makes the entire Rebel Alliance more real, meaningful, and desperately, radically heroic.
Luna wanted to start Cassian as far from a hero as possible, building his performance backwards and even adjusting his physicality over the course of the series as Cassian slowly grows into himself. “How messed up can we find this character and how difficult can we make the journey for him?” said Luna. “It’s important that we start at a point where you can’t believe that captain (in ‘”‘ Rogue One ‘) will come out of this man that we find in Ferrix, just trying to survive in a very cynical way in a very dark period of life of him “.
The gift of Luna’s performance as Cassian isn’t just a roadmap for the man she plays in “Rogue One.” The level of fear and darkness he invites us to feel through his eyes matters because the things he wants are so universal: stability, money, his family taken care of, and maybe a little revenge here and there.
Over the course of the series, those wishes simply aren’t enough in the face of oppression from the Empire. Luna based those pivotal moments of decision for Cassian on the tangible details of what she does—or doesn’t have—once she lands in the Imperial prison system. “That’s the moment she realizes that she can become a leader. And he is wearing that dress,” Luna said. “It’s like you become part of the walls, in a way, and you look like everyone around you, and it’s so uncomfortable. And walking around barefoot: it’s strange because for me being barefoot means being connected to the Earth. It is being connected to nature. But here it is the exact opposite. It is the fear that (the ground) is the enemy.
Cassian’s arc is to realize how unnatural the Empire is, but also to have the ability to fight against it. Luna takes the portrayal of him from wacky and disheveled, uncomfortable in his own skin, rage-spitting to resolute operative—or, at least, the rebels’ new hope.
Weaving the sophisticated strata of society
“Andor” includes a number of characters, cultures and planets from previous “Star Wars” films and series, but from the outset, costume designer Michael Wilkinson felt Gilroy’s scripts needed something different. “The project would have required a different type of ‘Star Wars’ costume than what audiences were used to,” Wilkinson said. “Much more like a very adult-oriented drama.”
For Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), who plays the politician while secretly funneling money to rebel cells, Wilkinson devised an entire “Chandrillan” fashion style that expands on what the character wears throughout the original film trilogy and it gives it a bit of the sheen that the political elite at the heart of the Empire would no doubt have. O’Reilly wears the sharp silhouettes and geometric layers Wilkinson creates like armor. “She has this double life. He’s very, very precarious, and we wanted to get that sense of danger, if you will, into the way he dresses,” Wilkinson told IndieWire.
For cosmopolitan Coruscant, Wilkinson created hundreds of silhouettes to capture a rich and diverse planet. “Coruscant is a planet that we have seen in many different episodes of ‘Star Wars’, but we have had the opportunity to use Coruscant to tell our story in the clearest way. We really wanted to get a sense of a multi-layered society,” Wilkinson said. go down to the world where, for example, Cyril (Kyler Soller) and his mother (Kathryn Hunter) live and they have a little less light, things are a little more cramped, they have a little less resources.”
“Andor” is a giant costume lift across multiple planets, but Wilkinson uses texture, color, layering, and contrast to show which characters have something to hide and which characters stand out, even when they’re in uniform. “Cyril is wearing his uniform where, by his own admission, he’s done a little bit of light tailoring and a little bit of tailoring, added extra piping and stuff to give him the status he thinks he deserves,” said Wilkinson . “Compare that to the way his boss wears the uniform, which is completely disheveled and sloppy. He says a lot about the character, how the character presents himself to the world, how he sees himself in the world, what his aspirations and priorities are. I love putting all that thought into the uniforms.
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