It’s been a month since the Andor series finale aired, and I miss it so much. The series, which is a prequel to 2016’s Rogue One, was a six year labor of love for creator Tony Gilroy and series star Diego Luna. Filming for season two began in November 2022 but was put on hold during the Hollywood strikes in summer/fall 2023. They finished filming in the UK in late February 2024. Diego just did a lengthy profile with Vulture’s Roxana Hadadi, where he talked about making of Andor and shared behind-the-scenes stories. Filming was an intense experience and when it was over, Diego and the rest of production let loose. They had an epic wrap party in England the night before Diego was flying back home. When Diego showed up at Heathrow the following morning, he was so hungover from tequila shots that he got himself into a little bit of trouble.
Diego Luna is telling me about the time he got detained at Heathrow. It was the day after the Andor wrap party, a raucous event that celebrated the end of six years of work on Tony Gilroy’s critically beloved Star Wars series. Tequila was flowing, and after two seasons of strict COVID protocols against socialization, Luna went hard. So hard, in fact, that when he was packing the next morning, he casually threw a memento he had taken from set — the blaster belonging to his character, rebel spy and resistance leader Cassian Andor — into his suitcase. He showed up at the airport toting an MW-20 Bryar pistol and a severe hangover, and security didn’t love it.
“I could barely speak English. My eyes were red, and I had a blaster that, because we have the best props team, looks real,” he says, pitching his voice as he recreates the anxious moment. “I said, ‘Have you seen the show? I’m the guy from the show!’ One guy recognized me from Narcos, which also didn’t help. Then another guy went, ‘That’s true, he’s a guy from Rogue One.’ Then everyone wanted to touch it.”
In Andor, the prequel to Rogue One that ended in May, Cassian is a thief turned radical turned Rebellion leader. Gilroy’s original plan for a series chronicling the growing resistance to the Empire stretched across five seasons, but Luna, concerned he’d be too old by the time the project finished, convinced Gilroy to compress it to two. Viewers went into the show knowing Cassian won’t see the destruction of the Death Star since he dies at the end of Rogue One, and Luna infused this journey first with sly, cocky confidence, then with steely dedication to the cause. Andor shirks Star Wars convention (no Jedi, few aliens, little interest in the Skywalkers), and the result is a series that builds upon the politics established in George Lucas’s original trilogy: Propaganda is sneaky, genocide is wrong, and standing up against authoritarianism is a necessary sacrifice.
When I ask about the series’ politics, Luna leans forward and places his elbows on his knees. “Obviously, we as artists, and as citizens, have an agenda,” he says. He insists the series was written with a historical approach that wasn’t intended to address the specific issues of the day. (Production on season two ended in February 2024, months before Trump’s reelection.) But it’s not his place, Luna says, to tell audiences how to interpret art: “You have to allow everyone to react the way they want.” What he does hope people get out of Andor is the sense that “the strength of community is about the need to believe in things, to fight for things … understanding that we are capable of shaping reality. This is something good to remind ourselves — that normally you could be doing more.”
Oh my goodness! I am sure that TSA officials in Florida and California are used to seeing Star Wars toys and props coming through security but it sounds like this blaster was pretty legit looking. If you’re not familiar with Star Wars, a blaster is basically a gun. That is so funny that once the security agents realized what it was, everyone wanted to see and touch it. If I were one of them, I totally would have wanted to see it, too! Thank goodness someone recognized him, even it was for Narcos at first.
As for his commentary on how the show was written with a “historical approach,” I liked the plot much better when it was just based on historical fiction and not actually playing out in real life in America right now. Diego is lucky that this incident happened in England in February 2024 and not in America in 2025! I don’t know if he would have been as lucky, even if someone did recognize him. I think one of the big lessons here is to pack before you start doing tequila shots.
Photos credit: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages (he is shown with Marina de Tavira in April, 2025), Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Avalon.red
This show was incredible and just a massive achievement.
And I agree I am beyond relieved this happened to him in England and not the USA. I mean, these days? 🙄
Andor was so amazing. I was ready to start re-watching it as soon as we were done with season 2.
Diego and Javier Bardem interview each other for the most recent round of Variety’s Actors on Actors and it’s a really interesting, funny, and touching watch. They both seem great.
Andor is some of the best TV i have seen in years. And in both seasons (though more pronounced in season 2) the show is divided into mini-arcs which lead to a lot of great conclusions. And some horrifying- Ghorman.
And not only does it seamlessly lead to Rogue One, which then shares its last scene as Star Wars (A New Hope)’ first scene, it is painfully timely as to the rise of authoritarianism, and fascism.
And the acting, the sets, the script, all brilliant.
Super happy his airport security issue did not happen in the US- he might be in ICE custody.
Our country is not safe for anyone who is not white, and openly racist.
I had TSA pull apart my carry on bag because I had too many charging wires in a small bag. I’m like dude, I have a lot of gadgets. I can imagine what a bunch of wires looked like under their screening process.
Better safe than sorry, but that is funny and kudos to the props team for making it so realistic. i wonder if it had metal in it that set off the red flags and not just plastic.
I ❤️ Diego
On one hand I’m genuinely surprised that filming took so long from start to finish- on the other…I believe that might be one of the reasons the story was so well done. It was just so well crafted, thought out, and intentional. Something that a LOT of these shows have lacked when being forced to adhere to the Disney grind timeline (aka The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and The Mandalorian).
The only reason Obi-Wan isn’t on my list is because I can watch Darth Vader snatch a ship out of the sky a million times and not get sick of it lol