Tony Gilroy Accepts Award for Andor: “Fuck the Empire!”

Now that Andor has been out for a while, showrunner Tony Gilroy is free to speak his mind on what the show was all about. I mean, it was pretty clear to the audience, but now he can say his piece. Andor won a Peabody Award and at the awards ceremony, Gilroy gave the following acceptance speech:

We spent six years contemplating a fascist takeover of a galaxy far, far away. Six years thinking about what happens to ordinary beings when an authoritarian, insane, unchecked regime comes into the deal, and the show is really kind of what we learned.

If you’re not willing to fight for the things that you love — your family, community, your culture, your planet, your truth, freedom — there’s an asshole ready to come in and take it away. We learned that bravery and sacrifice and resistance comes in all shapes and sizes, and we learned that courage is contagious.

There’s so much is happening, it’s a fire hose of crap that you just can’t get through. And here we are. There isn’t a new cycle that goes by right now that doesn’t contain a variety of outrages that in any other time in our history in America wouldn’t be grounds for treason.

Please do not stop. Please do not turn out the lights until we can kill this nightmare. And fuck the Empire!

Gilroy also recently appeared on Peabody’s podcast We Disrupt This Broadcast where he talks about the show’s prescience regarding the current political moment. From the transcript:

So any really specific prescient coincidence, and there probably will be some, they’re not intentional. They weren’t intentional at the time. They’re sadly what they are. And we were not looking at the newspaper when we wrote this. It doesn’t behoove me to do that. It’s incredibly, almost narcissistic how people feel that they’re always living at the edge of history in a way that’s just so unique. We feel so special.

And the sad truth is that, you know, we are just in another wheel of history. And I must admit that after 9/11 and Vietnam and Covid and Watergate and all the things I’ve grown up, I’m 68. I kind of thought, well, I’ve seen all the history I’m gonna see. I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel so special anymore as a human who’s lived on the planet and lived in something called civilization. I think sadly, it’s sort of a Catherine Reel of repetitive stupidity.

See also Andor Creator Tony Gilroy Is Free to Speak About Fascism Now and An Interview With Andor’s Creator, Tony Gilroy.

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