When it comes to fantasy and science fiction, storytellers sometimes need to find a unique approach to grounding the larger-than-life elements in something real and tangible. That goes double for those who may not necessarily be the biggest and most diehard fans of the given IP that they’re involved in creating (which happens much more often than viewers may assume). Benjamin Caron obviously has preexisting knowledge of “Star Wars,” but the name brand alone wasn’t enough to draw him to a series as bold as “Andor.” The real selling point, as it turns out, was Tony Gilroy’s writing. As Caron told /Film’s Ben Pearson:
“I was into ‘Star Wars’ when I was a kid, but I wasn’t an obsessed ‘Star Wars’ fan, and I declared that to [Tony Gilroy]. But I responded to the writing and to Tony’s writing. And my guiding principle is always to look at the emotional weather of the script and to focus on the anthropological strangeness of these people and find the uncomfortable stuff, the piece of gravel in the shoe and the emotional texture of the story that I can basically amplify through the visuals. That’s the guiding principle that I use across everything.”
Given the final results of those last two episodes (in addition to his directing work on episode 7, titled “Announcement”), it’s clear Caron possessed the acumen to fit right into the world of “Star Wars” and fully make it his own. But while “Andor” may not boast the kind of epic scope and scale that the movies or shows like “The Mandalorian” enjoy, the gritty series still came with plenty of potential for distraction. For his part, Caron wanted to steer well clear of missing the forest for the trees.
