some quotes i found interesting from the Toby Haynes THR interview about his Andor episodes so far (features spoilers for all episodes out so far up to ep 8)
"Is this on Disney+?" lol
![Interviewer: I’ve seen what’s ahead, and I can safely say that you made the right choice. Anyway, this might be a silly question, but was Andy self-conscious at all about not sounding like Snoke? Toby: No, but he did try an accent in one of the rehearsals. He was playing with the idea of an Iraqi accent because he has some Iraqi heritage. [Writer’s Note: Serkis’ mother was half-Iraqi.] But it never quite fit. With Andor, I don’t think we ever had an actor do an accent that wasn’t their own. We had everybody use their own original accents, without trying to soften them or anything. It’s part of their own character. It’s the realism of them, so there’s no additional layer of fakery. So we dropped that accent and went with Andy’s own accent. He wanted to find the right kind of tonal quality for it that fit the class level that Kino was at. We have a famous soap in the U.K. called EastEnders, and we didn’t want it to get too EastEnders where it would be too cockney. That would have a layer of artifice to it that we didn’t want. So it was just trying to find that right level of realism.](https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/ada44718-527b-4dec-838e-70d149a3e36e/andor_q11.png "Interviewer: I’ve seen what’s ahead, and I can safely say that you made the right choice. Anyway, this might be a silly question, but was Andy self-conscious at all about not sounding like Snoke? Toby: No, but he did try an accent in one of the rehearsals. He was playing with the idea of an Iraqi accent because he has some Iraqi heritage. [Writer’s Note: Serkis’ mother was half-Iraqi.] But it never quite fit. With Andor, I don’t think we ever had an actor do an accent that wasn’t their own. We had everybody use their own original accents, without trying to soften them or anything. It’s part of their own character. It’s the realism of them, so there’s no additional layer of fakery. So we dropped that accent and went with Andy’s own accent. He wanted to find the right kind of tonal quality for it that fit the class level that Kino was at. We have a famous soap in the U.K. called EastEnders, and we didn’t want it to get too EastEnders where it would be too cockney. That would have a layer of artifice to it that we didn’t want. So it was just trying to find that right level of realism.")
Really interesting note from Serkis there. I wonder if he was attempting to make a Guantanamo Bay connection or something along those lines?
Love how much Forest Whitaker got into it, seems like he really loves the character!
In regards to the lack of aliens in Andor, I do have a pretty good idea of why, and it's just as simple as that it's way easier to emote and read someone's face when they're a human! That plays into Tony Gilroy's strengths so I understand why we're not seeing a ton of them (although who knows, I could be proven wrong soon, with Saw's group showing up). But! I would love to see Gilroy attempt to bring depth to them or have a really elaborate alien puppet that gets as much love as the human characters.
