Mexico City.- ALFREDO LECONA: What is your first memory of Star Wars? Even the moment, if you are clear about it, and what made you a fan of the saga?
I don’t exactly remember where I was and how I saw the movie the first time. I would have been five or six years old when I saw it. I was born in 1979, I arrived late, the film had already been released for two years.
And I remember that it did make me feel part of a dynamic that belonged to my older cousins. It made me feel part of a group. But apart from what it meant socially and knowing that it was Star Wars and being able to play and grab a saber, I remember that the movie did leave an impression on me.
It was a demanding movie, which if you conquered it made you feel bigger. A movie that was not complacent. It began with a text… you had to read a text to understand it.
I remember having been pausing the cassette, the beta, to see it and to be able to understand the text. And it was a text that also sounded adult, it talked about insurgency, it talked about rebellion, I don’t know, it was very political, which was well seen at home.
In my house, talking about politics was talking about what had to be discussed.
OLIVIA ZERÓN: What did it mean for you to enter this universe playing a character so complex and so fundamental that in Star Wars of 1977 he is part of that story that appears in the famous yellow text floating in space? Who is Cassian Andor?
Yes, who was going to say that that text that I had such a hard time reading contained information that would later be essential to bring a character to life in my acting career? I think thinking about that is what makes this experience, Rogue One and Andor, something unique for me.
Rarely can you say as an actor that you are working on something that connects you so deeply with who you are as a spectator.
Let’s say that for me, episode four, A New Hope, is undoubtedly one of those first steps that I took as a viewer to create a personality.
Who is Cassian Andor? Well, we know little, we know what that text says, we know a few more things that have been said, that are written, but putting together all the information that was available about the character in Rogue One, what I realized is that there was a lack of information. and therefore a total freedom to create a story.
I made my own story, which you do every time you approach a character as an actor. But then in Andor that story became public somehow. It had to be told.
And it was a very close job with Tony Gilroy, the writer and producer of the series, where it was also very nice to see that his first proposal was very close to mine.
We are talking about a character who is a migrant, a refugee, someone who has been forced to migrate more than once and that had to be described in detail.
AL: It’s not just because of the love and joy that you’re with us at the Morning Coffee, I really think Andor is the best Star Wars series so far because it’s a story that could be told outside of the universe of the saga. and it would be perfectly valid in our times. Personally, it helped me a lot to see it the day the episodes were released because there were things there that connected perfectly with the reality, wow, of the Country. Repression, extractivism, the environment, military intelligence centers to spy on and eradicate dissidents. These are the times of the empire, Diego. But there is also a connection with our times and with our history, in rebellion, insurgency against insurgency. As a Mexican, what connections of this fiction with reality provoked you the most? How much of your story or our story is there?
Well, first I declare myself a fan of Café as well. I appreciate you doing it daily. If I have to criticize them for something, it’s that it’s too short, but now that I’m working on the second season and that I’m far from Mexico, it helps me a lot and it’s good for me to listen to them. So I thank you.
And that question is hard for me to answer because what happens to me is that I feel that we have a very bad memory. Thus, in effect, it seems that the series is talking about what is happening in Mexico today.
But if we had seen this series six years, 12 or 18 years ago, we probably would have said the same thing. We tend to repeat ourselves. And if Tony Gilroy has done something very well, it is to look for universal references that tend to be current, because sadly we are that. Repetitive to exhaustion.
But also, one thing that happens with the series, which is why I say that it does not simply belong to those of us who watch it from Mexico, is that it says different things, depending on where it is seen. Obviously, also, because I am involved and like it or not, that generates a certain influence on what and how is written.
To begin with, you have to tell the story of this character, of his accent. You have to tell the story of a character who doesn’t look like or seem to come from where the others come from. That already definitely opens up creative territory for us to explore that hasn’t been done before in Star Wars.
But I think the series looks different in Mexico than it does in the US border states versus in the northern US than it does in France. However, everywhere it seems to be very relevant.
After all, it is a series against oppression. He talks about the social awakening, the awakening of a revolution and the conditions for it to happen. That is relevant throughout the world today.
Fisher brothers excluded from tribute
Billie Lourd, daughter of Carrie Fisher, will lead today the tribute to the actress who played Princess Leia. In a statement, Lourd clarified that the unveiling of Fisher’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will not be attended by her uncles Todd, Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher.
“Days before my mother’s death, her brother and sister chose to grieve publicly and capitalize on my mother’s death by doing various interviews and selling books for a lot of money, with the death of my mother and grandmother as their theme.” Lourd said.
