Q&A – Actress Genevieve O’Reilly Discusses Reprising Her Role as Mon Mothma in “Star Wars: Andor”

Irish actress Genevieve O’Reilly got her start in theater and then went on to appear in The Matrix sequels as Officer Wirtz. In 2005, she played the younger version of Mon Mothma (a part originated by Caroline Blakiston in Return of the Jedi) in George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, though most of her screen time was left on the cutting room floor. Fortunately, she was brought back to reprise the role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and in the animated series Star Wars Rebels.

Now O’Reilly is playing Mon Mothma again in the new live-action series Star Wars: Andor, which premieres on Disney+ next month. And recently she participated in a virtual press conference to discuss her exciting return to A Galaxy Far, Far Away.

“We've met Mon Mothma before in different iterations of the Star Wars storytelling,” Genevieve O’Reilly began in talking about her character. “And each time we've met her, we've met this composed, regal, dignified woman who– often like with Cassian [Andor] in Rogue One– [her duty] is to send people out on a mission. I think what's extraordinary about how Tony [Gilroy] has written Andor, and where he has chosen to begin this story, is [that it is] so very different to where we find Mon Mothma in Rogue One. She is still that very dignified senator, but for the first time we get to see the woman behind the role. We get to see a private face of Mon Mothma. We get to flesh out not just the senator, not just the would-be leader of a Rebel Alliance, but also the woman.”

“I think the most exciting things about Mon Mothma [are] the bravery and where Tony has decided to begin. We meet Mon Mothma in a place we've never seen her before: we meet a woman steeped in Empire, navigating a very male-dominated Empire with a very powerful Emperor Palpatine at the top of it. Previously, in Rogue One or at other times, we've seen her surrounded by maybe people with different opinions, but with like-minded Rebels. We find her in Andor very alone, living in a world of orthodoxy and construct. We see a woman who has had to navigate her ideals and her beliefs within systems of oppression. And so we find her in a place we've never seen her before. We find her in a bit of a gilded cage. What I'm excited for is for us to travel that story with her– to journey with her as a woman and find her voice, reaching for voices that are fighting for similar things. Finding community, finding collaborators to be able to eventually be the leader that she becomes in Rogue One. There's a journey to travel and I'm excited for people to hop on that train with us.”

Star Wars: Andor premieres with its first three episodes on Wednesday, September 21, exclusively via Disney+.

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Mike Celestino
Mike serves as Laughing Place's lead Southern California reporter, Editorial Director for Star Wars content, and host of the weekly "Who's the Bossk?" Star Wars podcast. He's been fascinated by Disney theme parks and storytelling in general all his life and resides in Burbank, California with his beloved wife and cats.