Spoiler Alert: This article contains the destroyers of "Andor" Season 2 episodes 7, 8 and 9, and is now streaming on Disney+.
"Who are you?"
Despite their years of playing with Cat and Mouse, Diego Luna’s rebel spy Cassian and Kyle Soller’s Imperial Agent Syril Karn have never been together for a lot of screening time - until now. Unfortunately for Sirill, their meeting was short-lived as he hit a shot in the tragic Gorman massacre.
Ghorman's political tensions and civil unrest finally hit a breakthrough point in the latest episode of "Andor". The Empire will continue its secret mining plots and soon the planet Gorman will become unstable. Despite internal information about the rebel plan to his Imperial Director, Cyrill was caught off guard and felt his partner Dedra (Denise Gough) betrayed, and he always knew the truth. He slams and briefly slaps Diderra, asking her to tell him about the real effort of the empire. She assured him that they would soon live a better life, noting that he didn't mind all promotions when the Empire planned to destroy Gorman. He wasn't sure what he did to himself, as chaos broke out between the Empire and the Rebels.
During the Holocaust, Syril aimed at Cassian in the riots as he aimed at Dedra. Syril settled him before he was shot and the two went on a full-time fight. They slammed each other for a moment, and Sirill gained the upper hand when he grabbed Casian's gun and was ready to shoot. Just like when Cassian looks bleak, he just asks Synil: "Who are you?" The question freezes Syril in his track. The moment of survival uncertainty is the time for Ghorman leader Carro Rylanz (Richard Sammel), who previously welcomed Syril into the inner circle of the rebels. In this way, the Cassians escaped, and Cyril became another casualty in the Gorman massacre.
and type, Soller deeply scrutinized the death of Syril, becoming the "wildcat" in the battle scene with Luna, and the "prescient" of the Gorman Holocaust in today's world.
Tony Gilroy approached the entire project with such forensic strength. He has been drawing for five years from the start and knows the scope and size of each character. He didn't tell me until between seasons 1 and 2. I think it was a perfect ending for him. It felt like it was taken away before something else happened to Cyrill. In the last 10 minutes of his life, he had taken a lot from him, all of these revelations and betrayal reveals, the veil lifted from all the truths he believed to be right for the empire, and the choices he made in his life were completely broken. I think there is no story of redemption, but stronger and more real. For Cyril's vanity, romanticism and grand delusion, he was just another gear on the steering wheel. He is just another kind of casualty in the war.
I always see Cyril as someone who hides depth and thinks he is secretly angry. It is obvious that he grew up in a controlled environment under constant surveillance, so it is no surprise that he has this unexplored anger in his heart. We think it would be fun to see where it might come out, Rylanz faces him, and the betrayal with Dedra will eventually be with Cassian. Syril expanded himself at Ghorman, and he began to relax, gain more power and connect with his essence. Beneath all this, he knew he was being manipulated by Dedra, but he didn't want to admit it. There is this brewing anger. Ultimately, it was a person who had been lied for the rest of his life, and because they were still kids, they drank Cool Ed. He opened up a new way of thinking for himself with the intimacy between Rylanz and Dedra. He was betrayed and then saw the man, this totem, representing everything he could not achieve on this road in Cassian, and bypassing the riots and the Holocaust, who carried out a very personal explosion and exorcism on all the bad things the empire did to him. I saw those intense moments as strange catharsis for him because he finally released this release, and it was really miserable in the end, he just released the pain that was causing him.
We did a lot of drills. They cut down a longer battle scene. We filmed it in three days, a battle scene that was crazy and ambitious in the end of the entire two-week Ghorman massacre, and everyone absolutely messed up. But it's perfect because they need the end. We want it to look like this wild cat, you just can't back down. Throughout the entire revelation that happened to him, something unexpected, primitive was released. It's wild. We also shot it in late January so it was really cold and intense, but we were ignited. It's a little blurry, but I remember it's painful, but also very happy.
There are some longer rhythms. There is a big question whether Cyril is still on his feet when the explosion occurs, or he may have been dead, or it is looping to the end between the two of them. This battle was unexpectedly equal. On other days, Cassian will beat Sirill's shit, no doubt. But Synil released this superpower, and that's everything that happened to him. It's really sophisticated, trying to get to that moment, who prevails at the end, and Cyril accidentally comes with Cassian's gun. Then there is the last question for Cyril. Cassian is going to say three or four different things, and they finally got on the "Who are you?" I think it's perfect because that moment ruined Sirill. "Oh, my God. My obsession doesn't even know who I am." What's wrong?
Here is a short list: "You" and "You Are You" and "Who Are You?" At that moment, it completely put him in trouble. If Cassian had said "It's you," would Syril make more determination, or would he still lower the gun? I don't know, but as far as Syril's arc goes, it perfectly completes the journey that is used by a greater power than you in this huge machine and life. You think you've made a difference, but you don't.
I don't think he's going to go to either side of the fight. It's like leaving the cult, or someone tells you we're just living in the hologram and you're in the matrix, I think he'll spin out and want to leave somewhere alone. It's really hard to imagine everything you hold is wrong, people around you think your people have been cheating on you since day one, and this is a pawn of this war machine. I think he would linger and open a blue milk stall somewhere on the distant hill.
I wonder if he would crack it because it ended up feeling like it was cut from a similar outfit and had similar growth, but Dedra is a real, stubborn believer. Synil is one of those "evil dullness" who was promoted as a child and drank Cool's aid. Ultimately, we're talking about heart percentages, who has more. I think there is more to Sirill. You'll see what's going on on Ghorman. I don't think it's just emotion and innocence. You'll see a crack in the armor he puts around him.
Very heavy. It made me realize that really great writing is timeless. A true great writer will explore the past to explain the present, which ultimately predicts the future. That's what George Lucas was doing in the beginning, and Tony was doing it with a focus on World War II. To some extent, nothing new in the sun. You can show "Andor" 50 years ago or 50 years from now, and I bet, I bet people will find it very relevant because we are still riding bikes, like the shit we've been riding bikes all the time. No one could have expected it to feel very prescient, but it proves that really real writing is digging into our human desires, mistakes and emotions and questioning our situation with each other on this planet.
This interview has been edited and condensed.