With the first season of “Andor” finished airing, showrunner and creator Tony Gilroy and the team are hard at work on the second season, which began filming the other day.
As reported a few weeks ago, the new twelve-episode run has set its directors with Ariel Kleiman, Janus Metz and Alonso Ruizpalacios to helm three-episode blocks each in the second season (Kleiman gets two blocks, the other two get one each).
A big part of the success of the series has been its lived-in feel – real-world locations, practical sets and only judicious use of CG that’s rarely ostentatious and combined with slick directing from season one helmers Toby Haynes, Benjamin Caron and Susanna White.
Speaking with THR, Gilroy confirmed he “tried really hard” to get the first season helmers back, but it didn’t work. In addition, finding replacements wasn’t easy as the demand for quality TV directors is very high at the moment.
“It’s very hard getting directors. There’s a lot of people who are shopping for the same people all the time, and there’s only a certain number of people. It’s not easy to do this show. You can’t learn on this job, and we can’t take big chances with these blocks.
People have to be pretty experienced, and so that’s a smaller group. There’s a billion shows and everybody is scrounging for people. And a lot of people have a psychological impediment. They say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do season 2.’ And we’re like, ‘This is not season 2. It’s a whole other thing.’ And so it’s a lot of work getting directors. It was way more difficult than I ever thought.”
Gilroy also confirmed the new season is going linearly into the beginning of “Rogue One”, so there won’t be any ‘new scenes’ set during the events of that film popping up here.
The full first season of “Andor” is now up on the Disney+ service.
