Stellan Skarsgård is one of our generation’s greatest actors. He has been in such a wide range of films in a variety of roles that you may not even realize that you have seen him in other huge properties.
For the uninitiated, Skarsgård has been around the acting world for almost 40 years and has played big roles in huge franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean (Bootstrap Bill), the MCU (Erik Selvig in Thor & Avengers), & Dune (Baron Harkonnen). If you look at those franchises, one key aspect stands out, he is a Disney favorite. His time in the MCU and Pirates made him the ideal candidate for a role in Andor.
Little is known about his character, but in an interview with Screen Rant, Skarsgård described the character as “fun to play because he has a lot of different faces to show.” While a quote like this in a non-sci-fi film usually means that the character is complex and has many different interesting facets, in Star Wars, it could literally mean that the character actually has many faces.
The writing is really good. It’s the same writer that did Rogue One. And also to work with Diego Luna, who’s an old friend. So I was excited by that. And then my character is… Well, you’ll see. It’s fun to play because he has a lot of different faces to show.
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-andor-show-stellan-skarsgard-character-details/
Skarsgård also mentioned the writing for Andor as one of the stand out parts of the show. Some people may remember the small controversy that surrounded Tony Gilroy, the writer and showrunner of Andor, when he ‘saved’ Rogue One’s ending after coming in for last minute re-writes. Gilroy famously said that he didn’t care for Star Wars all that much, which he claimed made writing the end of Rogue One much easier since he had no reverence for any of the characters in the franchise. Many assumed that Gilroy would take his money and leave the franchise for good after Rogue One, but when Disney came knocking for Andor, he was eager to jump back into the universe and take on writing and running the show himself.
Andor is set to release on Disney+ in July and the 12 episode season will run through September. While there isn’t as much hype behind Andor as Kenobi or Ahsoka, this could wind up being a huge success given the characters that could be involved if the show continues beyond season 1.
