Even before she was Lucasfilm’s president, you worked with Kathleen Kennedy for years on the Bourne movies. Everybody is calling Andor the most grown-up Star Wars story told so far. Can you describe her role in this?
Well, she kind of snuck me into this thing.
She trapped you?
[Laughs] Yeah, she kind of seduced me into it. There was a period of time where I really wanted the show to die and I wanted to get out of it. When COVID came, I thought, Oh, thank God. COVID will kill the show, and I won’t have to do it. So there was a long period of time where I was like, I can’t believe she got me into this.
Why did you want it to die?
Because we had scripts going, and I was going to direct a bunch of episodes, and we were in London—we were casting—and I was just absolutely naive about what it would take to make the show. I really did not know what I was doing at all, in terms of the scope of work. So when COVID came, it was like, Oh, you know what? That’s a sign from God, no show. But the irony is that during that spell, we really figured out how to make it. We figured out a system to do it and got enough of a reset and a deep breath.
