Beau Willimon, one of the writers on the “Star Wars” series “Andor” joined our The Rogue Ones podcast for a long and in-depth chat about this “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” prequel series, this period of unrest, rebellion and revolution in the timeline that “Andor” is housed within. The write/creator/showrunner of “House Of Cards” and the screenwriter of “The Ides of March,” and “Mary Queen of Scots,” Willimon could have easily run another one of his own shows, but came on board “Andor” as a writer at the request of his friend, the Academy Award-winning writer/director and creator of the show Tony Gilroy.

Many don’t seem to know that Gilroy worked as a script consultant on “House Of Cards,” but they knew each other before that, mutual friends of the legendary screenwriter William Goldman (“All the President’s Men,” “Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid”), who became a friend and mentor to both of them. At Gilroy’s behest, along with his brother Dan Gilroy and, eventually, Tom Bissell, who was added to the writer’s room in season two, Willimon helped write this immense galactic tapestry of beings trying to live their lives, maintain relationships, and survive during the upheaval of Imperial wartime.

READ MORE: ‘Andor’: Tony Gilroy Digs Into Andor Season 2 Spoilers, The Final Shot, A Horror-Inspired K-2SO Ep That Never Was & Much More [The Rogue Ones Podcast]

Willimon said when Gilroy first approached him about writing on “Andor,” the writer was slightly worried and confessed he was a “Star Wars” fan, but not a huge connoisseur of all the lore. And if you know Gilroy, you know he saw all that as an asset.

“I told Tony when he asked, ‘Hey, I don’t know every planet. I don’t know every starship or alien race he said, ‘That’s fine. The less you know, the better. Just watch ‘Rogue One’ again.”

“‘We’re telling human stories. There will be droids and aliens in it, but first and foremost, we’re telling a human story,’” Willimon continued, sharing what Gilroy told him from the outset before joining the “Andor” writing team. “‘That’s what I want you to bring to the table, and we have plenty of people to help out, making sure that we get things right.”

“I think I brought a healthy degree of nostalgia, and maybe it was an asset to a degree that that, I think it’s, it’s so valuable to have people involved in any ‘Star Wars’ project who know all of the canon inside and out, but, but also, sometimes that can be a bit distracting and overwhelming,” Willimon explained. “So someone like me, who’s able to not be distracted by some of that stuff, hopefully was value added.”

Willimon, like Dan Gilroy, was also candid about the way the process worked, having no ego or preciousness as a writer and how Tony, as the showrunner, would take a pass on all the work.

“Sure, we introduce ideas into the scripts and then at a certain point, we do a certain number of drafts, and Tony goes. ‘Thank you very much. I’ll take it from here.’ And as any showrunner tends to do, or any creator, of course, he did significant rewriting on all of our episodes.”

READ MORE: Dan Gilroy Talks ‘Andor,’ Tyranny, Writing Mon Mothma’s Fiery Speeches, Bix’s Great Sacrifice & More [The Rogue Ones Podcast]

One of the great themes of the series, connected to ‘Rogue One’ was sacrifice, and “Andor” was an opportunity to learn who the people that had sacrificed everything, their lives, were, what made them tick and what made them disposed to surrendering it all for the greater cause of striking down tyranny.  That also led Willimon to discover that Forest Whitaker’s wild insurgent Saw Gerrera character was his favorite character to write for.

“Tony had from the very beginning the idea that none of these people are going to make it,” Willimon said. “I mean, in ‘Rogue One,’ we know that anyone who’s still alive in the show, most of them are then going to bite the dust in the movie that you watch right after episode 12 of season two. So it’s this idea of what, who are the people that are willing to do this, to make these sacrifices, that need this, despite the fact that they’ll never see the fruits of their labor. No one, I think, illustrates that better than Saw Gerrera.”

Gerrera is a beloved character from ‘Rogue One’—relatively, anyhow, he’s a crazy terrorist, essentially—but he’s only sparingly used in “Andor” throughout the two seasons, much like the fan-favorite droid K2S0 is only used in select moments. Willimon explained that was Gilroy’s remit from the jump.

“One of Tony’s many superpowers is exquisite narrative structure, pacing, and always this understanding of leaving them wanting more,” he said. “There’s a great William Goldman saying, which he probably stole from someone else, and we’re both students of Goldman, is “Get in late and get out early,” right? And [it means] do the most with the least. It’s as efficient as your storytelling as possible, because that’s what makes people lean in. And if you start to overdo something, you’re breaking a promise with the audience, which is, We’re not going to waste a second.” We’re always going to be giving you the juiciest, most compelling thing.”

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“And this show is a huge tapestry,” he continued. “And there are more characters with lines in the show than most TV shows out there, and certainly any other ‘Star Wars’ TV shows. It’s called ‘Andor,’ but it’s truly an ensemble piece in the sense that it’s painting a very big picture. So to go down a deep Saw Gerrera tangent for too long… “

“There’s a version of this where K2S0 could have been there from the beginning and his sidekick all along. But Tony wants to earn everything, and he wants to be deeply satisfied when K2 finally does show up.” So, yeah, Tony, I mean, I dunno, I’m still learning from the guy and how to pull off his magic tricks.”

More from this interview soon, but you can listen to the full The Rogue Ones podcast conversation below. All episodes of “Andor” are now available to stream on Disney+. Listen to the entire interview with Dan Gilroy below:

The Rogue Ones is part of The Playlist Podcast Network, including Bingeworthy, Deep Focus, The Discourse, and more. We can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, and most places where podcasts are found. You can stream the podcast via the embed within the article. Be sure to subscribe and drop us a comment or a rating, as we greatly appreciate it. Thank you for listening.