'Andor': Andy Serkis on How the Prison Set Messed With His Head

Disney+'s newest Star Wars series, the Rogue One prequel Andor, which stars Diego Luna in the title role, has attracted a lot of attention and acclaimed for how grounded it is. More so than ever seen in Star Wars before, the series puts the audience in the heart of a galaxy under fascist, Imperial rule, and pulls no punches with the brutality of the regime. But the immersive, all-encompassing hopelessness is not just something felt by the audience watching a finished, edited product. That same feeling also spread to the cast members.

In an interview with Collider's own Steve Weintraub, actor Andy Serkis, who plays Narkina 5 inmate and machine shop supervisor Kino Loy, said that everything on set, from the costumes to the set design, helped immerse the actors in the environment. So much so that they began to feel the psychological effects.

As Serkis told Weintraub:

It was extraordinary and very daunting. Look, we were walking on metal plates for weeks with bare feet, and that sapped your energy. Also, the costume design, the prison outfits, they're formed in such a way that takes away any sense of your own identity. So everything that was done to create that world really worked on you psychologically.

For Serkis, the whole immersion came down to more than just the costumes or the set. The intense choreography required for the machine shop, as well as the stark nature of the shop itself and the tunnels the inmates passed through all played a role in making the actor feel like he was genuinely a cog in the machine. He elaborated, saying:

Like you say, the machine parts, the process of creating the pieces that are being put together by the whole team, that had to be thoroughly worked out. The actual design worked really well with the choreography of what had to be done to create those parts. So everything about it, and the cells, there was no sense of individuality about everything. That really, really plays with your mind and with your head when you're working on a set like that day in day out. So it had the desired effect for sure, but it was mind-blowing. I mean, the main shop floor was just incredible. Then equally, those long tubes, that kind of exit and entry gates, where they go past every day, it really was being trapped. It was like being trapped in these enormous test tubes for days. And so that was kind of really, again, sort of wore you down a bit actually. There's no private space. Just as an actor, you normally find your little bit on the sets where you can go and sit in between takes, or whatever. You had to stand because there wasn't enough room. You really did feel like you were incarcerated in some strange weird place.

The first nine episodes of Andor are streaming now on Disney+, with new episodes on Wednesdays. Look for Steve's full conversation with Andy Serkis soon.