Andor season 2 cast: who plays who in the acclaimed Star Wars show

Andor season 2 cast: who plays who in the acclaimed Star Wars show

By Richard Edwards |

The Andor season 2 cast includes most of the actors who made the show’s first outing so memorable – along with a couple of new additions who’ll be familiar from hit movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

While the brilliant Fiona Shaw is unlikely to return as Cassian Andor’s late adoptive mum Maarva in the show’s second and final season (unless there’s a flashback, of course), series creator/showrunner Tony Gilroy is set to revisit all the other principal players in his Andor season 2 story.

The good news for viewers is that he can call on an impressive list of international stars from stage and screen, including one Academy Award winner.Here’s everything you need to know about the lead characters and who’s playing them in the Andor season 2 cast.

(If you haven’t already seen Andor, here’s why you should watch the Disney+ show – even if you don’t like Star Wars.)

Diego Luna as Cassian Andor

Cassian Andor first appeared in 2016 Star Wars movie Rogue One, leading the eponymous Rebel Alliance mission to steal Death Star Plans from the Empire. Andor died during that heist, along with all of his teammates, but Star Wars: Andor is a prequel series that explains how he became a man prepared to sacrifice everything for the Rebellion.

He starts out as a petty criminal looking for his long-lost sister in season 1, but – having become a fugitive from the Empire and spent some time in a brutal Imperial prison camp – gradually realises he couldn’t ignore the growing threat of the Empire. Andor season 2 will unfold over four years to complete his journey into Rogue One.

Born in Toluca, Mexico, Diego Luna came to international attention in hit Mexican movie Y tu Mamá También. He’s since had a successful career in Hollywood, with major roles in (among others) Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal, the Oscar-winning Milk, sci-fi actioner Elysium (alongside Matt Damon) and the 2017 remake of Flatliners.

Before joining the Andor season 2 cast, his TV outings have included a lead role as real-life cartel boss Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in Narcos: Mexico. Luna has also voiced characters in animated movies The Book of Life, DC League of Super-Pets and Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans.

Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma

Mon Mothma dates back to the original Star Wars trilogy, where she briefed the Rebel Alliance fleet ahead of its assault on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Before becoming one of the leading lights in the Rebellion, she was a senator in the Galactic Republic, representing her home planet of Chandrila.

When we first meet the character in Andor, her decadent political life is a front for her work raising money for the nascent Rebel Alliance. Her work for the cause forces her into morally awkward positions, such as arranging her teen daughter, Leida’s, marriage to the son of oligarch (and “thug”) Davo Sculdun (Richard Dillane). By the time Andor season 2 ends, Mon Mothma will be on the run, hiding from the Empire at the Rebels’ secret base on Yavin IV.

Genevieve O’Reilly was born in Dublin, but spent much of her childhood down under. Australia was a good place to be in the early ’00s, as The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels filmed in Sydney. She played Officer Wirtz in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, but her casting as Mon Mothma in Revenge of the Sith would prove rather more fateful. Even though her scenes were ultimately cut from the movie (you can watch the deleted scenes on the DVD and Blu-ray releases), her performance – not to mention her uncanny resemblance to Caroline Blakiston, who played the role in Return of the Jedi – have led to her reprising the role in Rogue One, Andor, the live-action Ahsoka TV show, and the Star Wars Rebels cartoon.

Prior to being part of the Andor season 2 cast, she appeared in numerous TV shows, including The Fall, Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead, Law & Order: UK, New Tricks and Spooks.

Adria Arjona as Bix Caleen

Skilled mechanic Bix Caleen has known Cassian Andor since their childhood on Ferrix, and they’ve been in an on/off relationship for years. It’s most definitely off at the time Andor kicks off, but he still comes to her to help him shift an untraceable Imperial Starpath unit he’s stolen, knowing that one of her off-world contacts – a certain Luthen Rael (see below) – might be able to help.

In Cassian’s absence, she looks after his dying mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw), but becomes a person of interest to the Empire as they attempt to track down her ex. Imperial Security Bureau officer Dedra Meero subjects her to brutal torture – subjecting her to the screams of dying alien children – until Cassian rescues her and puts her on a ship away from Ferrix with Brasso, Wilmon Paak and Cassian’s droid, B2EMO. The final Andor season 2 trailer suggests she’ll be part of the Rebellion when the show resumes.

Adria Arjona’s most prominent role to date came last year, when she starred opposite Glen Powell in Richard Linklater’s entertaining Netflix rom-com Hit Man. As well as being a key member of the Andor season 2 cast, she’s also spent the last decade popping up in high-profile movies and TV shows.

On the small screen, she’s had significant parts in Wizard of Oz reimagining Emerald City and the first season of Good Omens, while her major movie appearances have included Ryan Reynolds actioner 6 Underground, Spider-Man spin-off Morbius, and the 2022 remake of Father of the Bride.

Arjona will soon be seen alongside Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam and Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke in upcoming Prime Video series Criminal.

Stellan Skarsgård as Luthen Rael

To the outside world, Luthen Rael is the charismatic owner of a high-end antiques shop on the galactic capital planet, Coruscant. However, this is all just a front for his sideline as the spymaster behind the formation of the Rebel Alliance. Along with his assistant Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau), he brings together disparate Rebel operative – all the way from the political class of Mon Mothma to Rebel bad boy Saw Gerrera and Imperial Security Bureau spy Lonni Jung – to take the fight to the Empire. He also spots the raw potential in Cassian, starting him on his path towards Rogue One.

As well as lobbying Mothma for money and orchestrating an audacious raid on an Imperial base on Aldhani, he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty – indeed, Luthen‘s all for murdering Cassian in order to protect his own undercover status.

The father of a Swedish acting dynasty that includes True Blood/The Northman’s Alexander and IT/Nosferatu’s Bill, Stellan Skarsgård has spent his career straddling the arthouse and the mainstream. As well as appearing in five films for Danish director Lars von Trier, he’s ticked off some of the biggest movie franchises on the planet, including Pirates of the Caribbean (where he played Bootstrap Bill Turner), the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Dr Erik Selvig) and Dune (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen). Aside from being a member of the Andor season 2 cast, his small screen roles have included Chernobyl and Entourage. His biggest claim to immortality, though, has to be voicing himself on The Simpsons.

Kyle Soller as Syril Karn

Syril Karn starts out as a private law enforcement officer for the massive Preox-Morlana conglomerate. While his superiors would prefer the deaths of the two guards Cassian Andor killed on Morlana One to be brushed under the carpet, Syril defies orders by continuing an investigation of his own – a course of action that ultimately leads to his dismissal. His punishment is returning home to Coruscant to live with his domineering mother, Eedy (Kathryn Hunter), who uses family connections to get Syril a job at the Empire’s answer to the civil service. As he continues his investigations, he comes to see Dedra Meero – despite her barely disguised disdain – as a potential ally in his obsessive hunt for Cassian. Being in the right place at the right time to save her from an angry mob on Ferrix may just help him get what he wants…

US-born but now UK-based, Kyle Soller trained at RADA. Having starred in acclaimed Young Vic theatre productions of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, he played Steve Coogan’s agent, Jonathan, in The Trip to Spain, Robin Poldark’s cousin, Francis, in Poldark, and real-life AggregateIQ founder Zack Massingham in Brexit: The Uncivil War. Since Andor’s first season he’s been seen in time-hopping Netflix drama Bodies, as Victorian policeman Alfred Hillinghead.

Denise Gough as Dedra Meero

Dedra Meero is a rising star within the ranks of the Imperial Security Bureau, whose diligence and ingenuity are matched only by her ruthlessness. She takes particular interest in the case of Cassian Andor, and as her investigation proceeds, realises that rising Rebel factions may pose more of a threat than most of her complacent superiors (led by Anton Lesser’s Major Partagaz) believe. She eventually decides to use the funeral of Cassian’s mother to set a trap for Cassian, but doesn’t count on Maarva’s posthumous call to arms rallying the population of Ferrix into a massive uprising. She’s ultimately rescued from the melée by Syril Karn, who’s presumably looking for career advancement in return…

Another member of the Andor season 2 cast who first established herself on stage, Irish actor Denise Gough came to London aged 16 and – after attending Saturday acting classes – ended up at the ALRA acting school. She won several prizes in the West End, including a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in the 2018 production of Angels in America.

Early screen appearances came on Casualty, The Bill, Waking the Dead and Silent Witness, but more recently she’s had starring roles in BBC Two’s Paula, ITV’s Too Close and Disney+/ITVX drama Under the Banner of Heaven.

Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera

Saw Gerrera first appeared in animated series The Clone Wars, where he fought alongside Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on his homeworld, Onderon. After the Emperor’s galactic takeover, however, he became the leader of an increasingly extremist faction of guerilla fighters, and was subsequently disowned by the Rebel Alliance hierarchy, who see him as a loose cannon – even though Luthen Rael recognises his usefulness to the cause. He also adopted Jyn Erso, daughter of leading Death Star scientist Galen Erso, who goes on to play a pivotal role in the Rogue One mission.

Andor season 2 is not likely to play out well for Saw, who’s body is held together by several cybernetic augmentations by the time Rogue One plays out. He dies in Rogue One, when the Empire tests the Death Star on Jedha City.

The only member of the Andor season 2 cast with an Oscar to his name, Forest Whitaker first played Saw Gerrera in Rogue One and subsequently voiced the character in animated show Star Wars Rebels.

Back in the 1980s, supporting turns in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Color of Money, Platoon and Good Morning, Vietnam were followed by a breakout performance as jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker in Clint Eastwood’s Bird. High-profile roles in (to name but three) The Crying Game, Arrival and Panic Room followed, but it was his chilling performance as dictator Idi Amin that won him that Academy Award in 2006. He’s also directed several movies, including 1995 Whitney Houston vehicle Waiting to Exhale.

Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic

Orson Krennic first featured in Rogue One, where he was the primary adversary for Cassian Andor and his Rebel fighters. Having sat out the first run of Andor episodes, the character will become an integral part of the Andor season 2 cast.

If Darth Vader is pure Imperial muscle, Director Krennic is his bureaucratic opposite number, the man assigned to pull the strings that will bring the Emperor’s super weapon to fruition. As well as conning old friend Galen Erso into designing the Death Star’s planet-destroying lasers, he’s responsible for keeping the top-secret project on schedule, and under wraps from the rest of the galaxy. When he fails in the latter task in Rogue One, he becomes acceptable collateral damage when the Death Star destroys the Imperial research base on Scarif.

Australian Ben Mendelsohn got his big TV break alongside a certain Kylie Minogue in mid-’80s Aussie drama The Henderson Kids, and also served the inevitable stint on Neighbours. It was his performance in 1987 movie The Year my Voice Broke, however, that really made people take notice, and he’s a big enough star (on stage and screen) in his homeland that he was the subject of an episode of the Aussie version of Who Do You Think You Are? in 2009.

Mainstream Hollywood success took a little longer, but since his Emmy-winning turn as Danny Rayburn in Netflix drama Bloodline he’s been rather in demand. Beyond his role in the Star Wars universe (both in Rogue One and animated series The Bad Batch), he’s played villains in Robin Hood (opposite Taron Egerton) and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, and had a recurring role as the Skrull Talos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also starred as Christian Dior in Apple TV+’s The New Look.

Alan Tudyk as K-2SO

Another Rogue One character making his Andor debut, K-2SO was Cassian Andor’s right-hand droid in the Rebel Alliance.

His origins are rather different, however, seeing as he’s a former Imperial security droid reprogrammed to work for the Rebellion. We’re guessing we’ll see how Cassian first met and came to reprogram his mechanical BFF, and it’ll be intriguing to learn whether K-2SO’s withering sarcasm is factory standard or a later modification.

It must have been written in the stars that Alan Tudyk was going to visit that galaxy far, far away at some point. Not only was he one of the principal stars of short-lived but adored sci-fi show Firefly (and spin-off movie Serenity), but he also did the voice and performance capture work for Sonny, the android in I, Robot. In a franchise that tends to embrace destiny, that has to count for something.

High profile movie roles have included A Knight’s Tale and Dodgeball, but he’s arguably more famous for his voice work, most notably for Disney Animation Studios where he’s worked on every movie since 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph. He’s also the extraterrestrial lead in Sky sci-fi drama Resident Alien.