This story contains spoilers for episodes one through nine of Andor’s second season.
Star Wars fans knew this moment was coming. With the Ghorman Massacre imminent, lore had it that Mon Mothma—the politician from Chandrila fighting for peace and democracy, while secretly serving as an informant for the Rebellion—would give an explosive speech before the Senate that would officially end her double life and turbocharge resistance to the Empire. In the ninth episode of Andor’s second and final season, we reach that point. An elaborate plan comes together to allow Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) to speak from the dais, against the wishes of her colleagues and the Empire’s leadership—and more surprisingly, we hear her unshakable remarks in full.
“I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. For all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous,” she says. “The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us—when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands—we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.”
Andor has been profoundly resonant this season, perhaps never more than with that rousing, devastating polemic. It’s delivered with exacting delicacy by O’Reilly, who’s been waiting 20 years to deliver this very speech.
Caroline Blakiston originated the role of Mon Mothma in 1983’s Return of the Jedi. O’Reilly, fresh out of drama school at the time, was eventually cast as a younger version of the senator in 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. O’Reilly’s scenes were largely cut from that prequel, and she left the Star Wars films for a decade, until Rogue One—the movie cowritten by Tony Gilroy, the mastermind behind Andor, and whose events lead right into A New Hope. Her role then expanded in Andor.
This speech gives us our richest insight yet into Mon Mothma. “It’s the fulcrum, the crux of who she is,” O’Reilly tells Vanity Fair. “The opportunity to get to do that as an actor was everything.”
Vanity Fair: I know Tony likes to outline storylines for actors as much as he can. When did you know you would be getting to make that speech?
Genevieve O’Reilly: I knew from the very beginning—from the very early stages, even when we were talking about [the show] being five seasons—that the escape from the Senate, that threshold that she had to cross, was always part of her story. Tony said to me that the weight of her emotional work and her value as a character would really be in episodes seven, eight, and nine. I knew that we were heading for that. I was desperate.
What was it like when you got that script?
I’ll tell you something unique about how it landed. Tony is quite engaged as a showrunner. When scripts would land, he would ring; he was often in New York and we were in London. But when that script landed, episode nine in particular, he was in London and he came into my trailer. Dan [Gilroy], his brother, wrote that script. But the speech wasn’t the speech we have now. The speech was moments of the speech. So they create this within the architecture of Andor: There are these big moments, but there are multiple things going on. The Diego [Luna] storyline, the dissident groups, there’s all happening around her speech.
In the initial script, you only heard the odd line of her speech. It was peppered with bits. But Tony came in and he said, “What do you think of the script?” I said, “I love where you’re going. I love the dexterity of it and I can’t wait to get into it.” And then I leant forward and took a breath, and he said, “You want me to write the whole speech, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I do. I want you to write the whole speech.” It was a real mark of him understanding me as an actor: how I like to work, and what I was reaching for, and also what I really wanted for the character.
