“I swear I got a job because I was the paleest person in Sydney,” Genevieve O’Reilly said of the fateful day she met with a Star Wars casting agent over 20 years ago.
At the turn of the millennium, the newly opened Fox Studios invited major productions to Australia. From Moulin Rouge to the Matrix trilogy, it was not uncommon to see recent NIDA alumni and the soap stars who kissed the sun fill in the scene behind Hollywood’s A-Lister. Born in Dublin but raised in Adelaide, O’Reilly moved to Sydney to study acting and was one of many.
“The small role was lived by our people around us,” she says from her current home in London.
Growing up, O’Reilly had seen the Jedi revival in 1983, but he paid more attention to Princess Leia and the ewoks than the brief appearance of Mottoma, the leader of the Rebel Alliance, played by British actor Caroline Blakiston. But when George Lucas was making the final Star Wars prequel of 2005’s Sith of the Sith, he needed someone who could pass the younger version of Blakiston. An Irish-Australian from a drama school saw some of it.
“I remember working with Jimmy Smitz with Natalie Portman, a truly extraordinary actor at the top of their craft,” O’Reilly says of his time at the “oiled” Lucasfilm machine. “I’ve been with them and started drinking all of it.”
“And that role has been cut back!” she laughs.
Like Claudia Carban’s turn as Luke Skywalker’s long aunt In the clone attack, O’Reilly’s blink seemed to blink, as Mon Mothma exists only as an extra DVD to be seen by Mega fans.
O’Reilly currently lives in London. This wasn’t too far from where the new Star Wars film slate was being filmed under Disney, the franchise’s new owner. She was invited to reprise Montmosma’s role in Rogue One, the prequel of 2016, just before Lucas’s original trilogy. Among them, she was dressed in 1983 with a bob haircut and a white robe brakiston.
She was happy to return, but the limitations of the role quickly became clear. “Mont Mosma has always been the character of the exposition. She was there to let her know what was going on and where the hero would move next.”
This meant that when Disney commissioned a spin-off television series that tracked the arc of Cassian Andru, a rebel pilot played by Diego Luna in Rogue One, O’Reilly wasn’t on sale on his return. Showrunner Tony Gilroy-Borne’s identity and Michael Clayton’s screenwriter set out to re-shoot Rogue One, who convinced her.
“I remember telling him, ‘Listen to me, I think you’re the best, but I really don’t want to step into another descriptive version of this woman. she. Find out who this woman is. ”
Blakiston’s only memorable line in return for the Jedi – “Many buttons have died to bring this information” – hinting at the invisible sacrifice and struggle hidden beneath Lucas’s swashbuck ring space opera.
When Andor’s first season aired in 2022, its tragic subtext became its raison d’éstation. The show also offered viewers something unusual. It’s a Star Wars spin-off that can stand in the reality of life of a fascist empire and itself. Under was a fascinating character-driven drama and political thriller that stretched out the edge of the genre’s trapping.
In Andor, Mon Mothma walks the high wire. The image of the senator secretly funds underground resistance. “I will show you a stone in my hand, you will miss the knife in your throat,” she confides in her old friend. “The people of Montmosma think they know, that’s a lie.”
From her first scene, Gilroy says that she embodied her double life.[He] Set the complexity of the character – you understand what she has to lose, that she has eyes, that people’s lives are at risk. It’s a very specific and clever sentence. ”
At the end of the season, one of Andale, Mosma, was on the verge of marrying her only daughter for a rebellion. Season 2 picks up on her hometown planet Chandrira, a world dripping with privilege and high culture. The gorgeous costumes and sets show not only the harsh wealth gap across the galaxy, but also how much Mothma has to fall.
“I remember saying, ‘Well, I feel like I’m at Downton Abbey in Star Wars,” she says. “It was really about family, nuances and threats. And it really feels human.”
Gilroy has admitted O’Reilly a rare amount of agency for how her character meets those threats. In some key scenes, O’Reilly says that Gilroy picked up his brain before returning to the keyboard. “He’s instinctively supportive,” she says. “He’s interested in nuances. He’s interested in cells between things, not skeletons.”
Like the first season, Andale’s colonial crackdown and portrayal of the post of truth evokes a historical narrative that is close to home to the authoritarian regime. Before the 2023 author’s strike temporarily freezes production, it can even seem to reflect today’s news cycle, despite the script being completed two years ago.
“I think “emilations” are a big part of human history across continents and beyond age,” O’Reilly recalls. “The empire was a part of us, and I think it’s like the ugly side of human ambition.
“We are all influenced by historical empires in Australia, Ireland, America, Africa, Portugal and France.
Andor’s slow pace of burning and acutely observed tension feel that the gravity of her leadership has been acquired when Mon Mothma finally becomes the form of a rebel she barely saw in Return of the Jedi – a call for a rally, not a plot dump.
O’Reilly has played other major roles over the years. On the other side of Eric Bana in Outback Noir, Tim Ross was hit in three seasons with Tin Star. But 20 years after our first meeting in Sydney, what began as a deep-skinned casting choice became a rare kind of experience.
“I believe in her,” she adds. “That’s something you don’t feel all the time.”
