Although the Disney era of “Star Wars” has famously been a bit messy and overwhelming, there is one clear TV show that’s shone above the rest. “Andor,” the prequel to “Rogue One” following Cassian Andor and a growing rebel alliance, is a clear gem, possibly the best thing to come out of the entire franchise since “The Empire Strikes Back.”
It’s also a dream come true for Diego Luna, who plays the titular Andor. Although Luna was already a successful actor pre-“Rogue One,” he had never been in something that felt like such a huge deal, like such an exclusive opportunity. “It was the first time such secrecy happened around anything I was going to be part of,” he told Variety in a 2023 interview. “I was asked by my agent to meet someone for something that couldn’t be said on the phone. I went into a meeting in a restaurant that was completely empty. There was a guy sitting in the corner with a computer open, and this was Gareth [Edwards], the director. I sat down with him, and it was just us for four hours.”
Luna’s biggest surprise, however, was just how little his accent mattered: “Gareth explained to me the whole film, and he said at the end, ‘I would really like you to play this role.’ I said to him, ‘But I don’t see myself here. I love these films, but how do I fit here? No one has my accent. I’ve never thought this could be possible.'”
Thankfully, Gareth Edwards is an Alfonso Cuaron fan
The “Rogue One” director didn’t care about Luna’s accent, however. As Luna explained, “He basically said, ‘Since I saw ‘Y tu mamá también,’ I thought you could be great for a role like this. I want that kind of tone in the film. I want that realism, that feeling that it’s everyday life.’ I never thought that a film like ‘Y tu mamá también’ would get me the chance to be in the world of ‘Star Wars.'”
Fans of the 2001 road trip romance film can definitely understand Edwards’ logic here. That movie is a masterpiece, one of the best among Alfonso Cuarón’s already impressive filmography. There, Luna plays the young horny Tenoch, a guy who initially comes off as a bit of a sleazeball but who reveals himself to be a complicated, sympathetic character. Twenty-three years later, it’s still one of Luna’s best roles, and it’s easy to see why it would appeal to Edwards, and subsequently “Andor” showrunner Tony Gilroy. “Andor” is a surprisingly grounded, realistic story within the “Star Wars” universe, and “Y tu mamá también” feels achingly real.
It was the sense of nuance and realism from that movie that Luna kept with him throughout the first (and now second) season of “Andor.” As he explained:
“You have to forget this is ‘Star Wars.’ Tony Gilroy was very specific, always. Every time you had to explain too long what you wanted to do, he would be like, “There’s no room for that. It has to be simple. It has to be easy. It has to be real.’ … If it started to feel imposed or weird or from ‘a galaxy far, far away,’ then we were doing the wrong thing.”
