Genevieve O'Reilly And Tony Gilroy Break Down Mon Mothma's Big Speech In 'Andor'

Star Wars

May 8

Episodes 7-9 of Andor had a great impact on everything that Tony Gilroy has been building up with the Ghorman massacre. It was as beautiful in its execution as it was heartbreaking to see it. What follows is Mon Mothma’s speech in the senate, decrying the Empire for what it has done and naming Emperor Palpatine a monster for allowing it to happen.

That speech defines Mothma being the point of no return for her. The point she openly supports the rebellion she has been building. For Genevieve O’Reilly, who has portrayed the character for 20 years, it was a culmination of everything she has brought to who Mothma is. “It was everything I was hoping for. That’s like the best gift you can get as an actor. She speaks to how important the Senate is to her. You can see that it’s like her church. She reveals so much and then she calls out some really brutal truths.”

Revealing that she knew the speech would be important to fans, O’Reilly continued with, “That’s the fulcrum of who Mon Mothma is right there. And so I got to stand up for her in that moment. That was really important to me, and I hope it means something to people because it felt really great to be able to give her that voice.” How important was the speech to O’Reilly? Enough that she wanted to deliver it all on screen.

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Various scenes were intended to be cut into that speech, where only parts of it would be heard. But when Gilroy met O’Reilly in her trailer, there wasn’t much convincing needed to make that full speech a thing. O’Reilly recalled that Gilroy said, “You want me to write the whole speech, don’t you?” during that meeting, to which she replied, "Yes, please, please, I would love that. Write the whole speech.” Within a few days, the whole speech was written, given to O’Reilly to learn, which the director of the episode also agreed to make happen.

“It was such a huge thing to me to give that whole speech,” O’Reilly said. “It feels really special.” After the speech publicly decrying the Empire, a more symbolic moment of that change comes during the escape from the Senate building with Cassian. Slipping from her Senatorial robe. As O’Reilly recalled, “We knew that Cassian had to give her his coat because he has to disguise her to leave the building. It wasn’t scripted where it happened, but I remember us really workshopping that. Where does it mean the most?”

The moment chosen reflects the true moment of the point of no return, where Mothma sees firsthand the brutal acts of survival against the Empire. In the lobby of the Senate, “she’s faced with that wall of undeniable aggression and rebellion. It’s deeply shocking to her. That is the most instinctive, vulnerable moment to drop everything in order to escape that.”

To O’Reilly, the dropping of the robe felt like the true moment of revolt. “She’s been working for the Rebellion deeply and intrinsically, and she’s been vital to the Rebellion.” She also revealed that it felt right to share that moment with Cassian. “That felt beautiful, that it is with him, given where we go in Rogue One. But it’s that there’s no turning back at that point. There is no going back.”

Fans of Star Wars Rebels will have noted that the speech in Andor has changed from what was seen in the animated series. Tony Gilroy, alongside Dan Gilroy, felt constrained having to keep to that version of the speech. They wanted to make it their own. “We are hijacking canon,” Tony Gilroy admitted. “In a really sneaky way, we’re minimizing what they did in Star Wars Rebels, but we’re keeping it consistent. We’re just saying you don’t really know the whole story of what happened.”

That hijacking of canon means Mothma doesn’t immediately take a transport away from Coruscant, instead taking a stop at one of Luthen’s safe houses with Cassian. The members of Gold Squadron seen in Rebels are those that Luthen contacted to escort her to Yavin IV. While underway, she would make another broadcast to the galaxy. That second broadcast was the one that those of the Ghost would see before joining the escort.

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