Mon Mothma actress Genevieve O’Reilly has teased how the character of Mon Mothma has been developed for the Disney+ Andor series, “We see her literally and figuratively take off her cloak and reveal herself as a woman in a way we’ve never seen before.”
“We really get to develop her as a character, and we get to learn about her not just as a senator, but as a woman,” O’Reilly, 45, tells EW. “[We learn] what her life is like, what she has to wrestle with, what are the dangers to her life, what it costs to be her. Tony’s writing is so intricate and so taut. It lives in this world of the spy genre, of a sociopolitical drama, and yet it’s set within a Star Wars world. So it feels universal and intimate all at once.”
When O’Reilly first landed the role for Revenge of the Sith, she rewatched Blakiston’s scene in Return of the Jedi to help figure out the character— something she still does. “I was always interested in her,” the actress explains, “and each time I go to play her, I go back to that scene.” Wearing that familiar white robe and short hair help her get into character, of course, but O’Reilly says the most valuable asset is listening to Blakiston’s voice — particularly that iconic line about the Bothans.
“You can see when Caroline does that in that scene, for me, there was always a pain at the heart of it,” O’Reilly explains. “You could see that she was carrying a pain, and I was really curious about what that was. What has happened in this woman’s life? What has it cost to be her? What are the sacrifices that she has had to make along the way to be that leader of a rebellion?”
Andor hopes to answer some of those questions. When the show begins, Cassian Andor and Mon Mothma are (literally) on different planets, and it’ll take a while for their stories to intersect. But O’Reilly hopes that as the two-season series continues, it’ll bring a new depth to Mon Mothma’s past appearances and show a new side of the stoic Rebel.
“We see her talking to senators, and then we meet her at home with her husband,” O’Reilly teases. “We see the public and the private. We see her literally and figuratively take off her cloak and reveal herself as a woman in a way we’ve never seen before.”
For more of EW’s interview with Genevieve O’Reilly, listen to the full conversation on EW’s new Star Wars podcast, Dagobah Dispatch and hear her talk to Jedi News on the latest episode of RADIO 1138. The first three episodes of Andor will stream exclusively on Disney+ from September 21st.
