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Entertainment

“Andor” creator Tony Gilroy and star Elizabeth Dulau unpack epic Kleya backstory episode

Last updated: May 14, 2025 8:00 pm
Oliver James
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“Andor” creator Tony Gilroy and star Elizabeth Dulau unpack epic Kleya backstory episode
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Key Points

  • Andor creator Tony Gilroy explains that he wrote a Kleya and Luthen backstory episode so that nobody else could do it later.

  • Star Elizabeth Dulau reveals one flashback scene that did not make it into the episode.

  • Dulau also names the songs she listened to on her “Luthen playlist” before killing him.

If there was ever any doubt that Elizabeth Dulau’s Kleya had ascended the ranks to become a true Andor MVP, that doubt was dashed on episode 10 of the Rogue One prequel series’ second and final season. That’s because the undercover antiquities shop assistant got her very own backstory episode as we learned how she and Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) first met. “Nobody else gets a backstory,” Andor creator Tony Gilroy points out to Entertainment Weekly. “Diego gets the Kenari story, but nobody else gets a backstory.”

So why did Kleya and Luthen get one, in which we see Kleya as a little girl found by Luthen while hiding in a transport, and then trained at a young age to become a rebel terrorist blowing up imperials on a bridge? Turns out there were a few reasons, including a promise to Skarsgård.

“I had promised Stellan from the beginning that we would find an origin story,” Gilroy reveals. “And his only request was that it not be revenge. He did not want to have a revenge story. I tried a couple different things. Really early on I had something incredibly elaborate that fell off the truck, and it got very simple once we really realized how powerful Elizabeth was.”

Lucasfilm Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) on season 2 of 'Andor'

Lucasfilm

Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) on season 2 of ‘Andor’

There was also another powerful motivator for Gilroy to tell Kleya’s backstory: he wanted to be the one to tell it. “I think our curiosity about what that relationship is about is huge. I wanted to make sure that everybody wasn’t writing a story about that that I didn’t want them to write. That’s always present. I didn’t want anyone to think there was anything sexual or anything romantic or anything weird or anything confusing. I really wanted to define it before anybody else tried to define it. If you don’t define it, somebody else will.”

And in Gilroy’s view, Kleya ends up defining Luthen. “The girl who plays her young, April Woods, holy crap! She just transfused that steel all the way through, and you realize Kleya is the organizing principle in that shop, Kleya is the muscle there, Kleya is the stalwart. He’s only there because he’s so guilty and he’s conforming to her reality all the way through. It is pretty tricky to have an adult with a child doing terrorism and not make it feel manipulative. He’s been afraid of her from the moment he looked in that cage and saw her. She is his transformation, and that’s a pretty unusual story to be able to tell.”

What makes the backstory so effective and moving is watching it play out in tandem with the other timeline taking place — as adult Kleya breaks into the hospital to end the life of the man who made her what she was before he can be interrogated by the ISB. We spoke to Elizabeth Dulau to get the full scoop on Kleya’s finest hour.

Disney+/Lucasfilm Elizabeth Dulau as Kleya Marki on season 2 of 'Andor'

Disney+/Lucasfilm

Elizabeth Dulau as Kleya Marki on season 2 of ‘Andor’

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first learn about Kleya’s backstory? Is this something you knew when you first took the role, or were told later when you started filming this episode? When did you have that intel as you were playing this character?

ELIZABETH DULAU: Tony called me just before season 1 came out to talk me through what was going to happen in the next season. All of season 1, I knew that Luthen was very important to me. I knew that I would die for him, but I didn’t know why.

I come from a theater background where the plays from start to finish are written, and you have the whole story, you have all the spoilers. And so this was the first time where I was working on something that was still being created and still in quite a fluid state. So there was this amazing phone call from Tony to tell me the outline of what was going to happen for Kleya in season 2. It was just astonishing in the best possible way.

How did that help you inform everything you did in season 2?

I love a backstory. Who doesn’t? Even if I’m not given one, I will invent one to help flesh out a character. So it really helped me do that really because I think I avoided doing that entirely on season 1 because I didn’t want to make choices based off of that. That would be problems later down the line. So I finally got to really invest in all of that stuff.

It helped me prep because I work a lot with daydreaming. It’s something that I do naturally, almost to a fault. I’m a terrible daydreamer, but with my acting, I like to focus it on something and imagine a scene from my character’s previous life. So knowing that Kleya and Luthen’s relationship started in such a terrifying and dark and painful way, I think when he first saves her, Kleya will have really hated him to begin with because he’s not like this kind man that’s innocent. We don’t see how involved he is outside of the ship, but he doesn’t stop it. At the very least, he doesn’t stop it.

I really refuse to believe that his colleagues would’ve let him just hide in the ship all day and not be useful to them. He is very guilty of erasing Kleya’s previous life and all of her loved ones, or at least assisting in that. So Kleya would’ve hated him from the start. And so I spent a lot of time daydreaming about her previous life. If she had a mom and dad, who were they? If I had brothers and sisters, if I had a best mate, what my life was?

But then I also would daydream about the day when Luthen made Kleya laugh for the very first time. And nice things that cropped up along the way that made space for love to grow between them, against both of their better judgments. Neither of them would’ve wanted that to happen, but I think it does. And so Tony telling me all of her backstory, then gave me time to daydream on all of these things and create what now feel like very real memories.

What was it like then when you finally saw those scenes of Luthen with young Kleya?

April Woods, who plays little Kleya, is amazing. Absolutely astonishing. I’m in touch with her mom, so we email back and forth and I keep telling her how talented her daughter is. She just smashed it. I’m so, so happy for her. I cannot wait for everyone to see her work. But yeah, those flashbacks changed a lot actually.

In what way?

I wouldn’t want to say too much because I wouldn’t want to add to the show that Tony crafted, but there was one really beautiful scene that shows you Kleya and Luthen arriving at what is now their gallery for the very first time. You see them moving in there, and it’s a really beautiful, happy memory. So I used that even though it got cut. I decided it’s still there.

And what I found really interesting about those flashbacks is that it’s just so cold. I mean, they’re beautiful, but she’s such an unusual child to begin with. I feel like she’s probably always been quite an unusual, very logical child, very rational, but nonetheless, she’s still a child and she still needs love and warmth. And Luthen does not give her that because he knows she needs to be this weapon. And so my heart broke for her a bit because she grows up being sort of sharpened like a blade, as opposed to allowing herself to stay soft.

Disney+/Lucasfilm

Disney+/Lucasfilm

I love the hospital infiltration. It feels almost like a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie or something. Tell me how you wanted to approach Kleya finding ways to break in past the imperial guards to get to Luthen.

I will say a lot of the things I encountered on this job was the first time I’ve encountered them because I graduated drama school and then got this job. So I was learning a lot as I went. And I realized just how technical nonverbal scenes are while shooting a lot of that hospital sequence. So much of it is body language. I mean, that’s really all you have to use.

Watching the feedback on the monitors was actually really useful to me. So for that sequence of moving through the hospital, I did that a lot because I would spot a little tension in my shoulders or something that I didn’t realize was there. And so I thought, “Something about that was distracting.” It would take away from the image, which told the story. So I approached it in that way a lot. I would be constantly watching the feed back and then adjusting.

But I also just tried to have so much fun with it because, as you say, it is like a James Bond film. It’s so cool! And whipping out the blaster and literally shooting these guys and having pyrotechnics fly out the back of them — that was my favorite moment to shoot throughout the whole thing. This was pure seven-year-old Elizabeth living her best life. It was unbelievable and the best fun I’ve ever had.

Disney+/Lucasfilm Faye Marsay as Vel Sartha and Elizabeth Dulau as Kleya on 'Andor'

Disney+/Lucasfilm

Faye Marsay as Vel Sartha and Elizabeth Dulau as Kleya on ‘Andor’

Speaking of body language and having to say a lot without verbal communication, tell me about filming that scene where she finally gets to Luthen and ends his life. How did you get yourself in the place where you needed to be to do that?

I use music a lot. I find it really helpful on set just before the director calls “Action.” And I created so many different playlists for Kleya, but I also created one for Luthen, which was something that came about quite naturally. And in that scene, I didn’t run to the monitors. I didn’t go and watch because I really wanted to not be thinking about how any of this was looking. I wanted to purely try to focus on the reality of the situation.

Thankfully, Stellan did lie there for me. It wasn’t just like a tennis ball or something. He really played dead for me excellently. So I really could just look at this man and tried to let my imagination just run away with itself and remember all these daydreams and memories that I’d created in my head and allow the music to move me right before the director’s action.

An extra element to that scene that I really wanted to bring across is that when Kleya was little, she spent a long time hating this man. She likes to try to convince herself “No, no, there’s nothing there. He’s a colleague and we work together and we’re both expendable.” She tries to take the hate that was very much there when she was younger, and she tries to use that to help her do what she has to do. And all the love that she has for Luthen just keeps getting in the way.

It’s the memories of those scenes that you see with little Kleya when he says, “Life shows you what you stand to lose.” I think that’s such a beautiful line, and it kept coming to me in the moment when I was killing him.

Do you remember any of the specific songs that you had on that playlist you would listen to?

Yeah, I still have it. [Takes out phone]. “On the Nature of Daylight” by Orchestra of the Swan. I think [the Max Richter version] been used before in the film Arrival. I can’t remember where I first heard it, but it instantly reminded me of Luthen. There’s one song that I didn’t use as prep for that scene, but I was wandering around Hyde Park one day and it’s slightly jazzy, and I was just like, “This is Luthen in a song. It’s got all the elements of him.” It’s “Movement 6” by Floating Points. It’s like eight minutes long, which is so Luthen. But “On the Nature of Daylight,” that’s the one that I use quite often. And “The Unfolding” by Hannah Peel.

Finally, what do you think happens to Kleya after she gets dropped off on Yavin?

I don’t know, but I’d love to find out if someone wants to write that, or if Tony ever feels like coming back to her story. I don’t even want to speculate because I know that if some talented writer ever wanted to pick up Kleya’s story again, they would do a much better job than me of writing something really, really surprising. And I would love to know what happens next.

Have you been daydreaming about it?

Yeah, a bit. But then I try not to. I mean, what kind of life is left? It’s weird. It’s kind of like the world’s her oyster almost, but she’s so broken. She’s sort of left in the embers of her life and from there can rebuild in any direction she wants to. So what happens? We’ll see.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly

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