Warning: SPOILERS for the first four Andor episodes are ahead!
There have been plenty of instances where characters featured in Star Wars movies aren’t important right off the bat, but they become major players later on in the franchise. For example, Caroline Blakiston only had a brief speaking part as Mon Mothma in Return of the Jedi, and Genevieve O'Reilly’s speaking scenes as the character in Revenge of the Sith ended up being cut. Fortunately for O'Reilly, she was brought back to reprise Mon Mothma in Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels, and now she’s back again for the critically well-received Andor, which can be streamed with a Disney+ subscription. With four episodes down in Andor’s first season, O’Reilly discussed what the younger Mon has been up to between the conclusion of the Prequel Trilogy and this new Star Wars series.
Andor takes place five years before the events of Rogue One (which occurs right before A New Hope), and thus around 15 years after Revenge of the Sith. In Mon Mothma’s deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith, she says “We are not Separatists trying to leave the Republic. We are loyalists trying to preserve democracy in the Republic.” So when Genevieve O'Reilly (who loves Star Wars fans and their theories) stopped by EW’s Dagobah Dispatch podcast, she was asked if this is basically what her character has been up to since Palpatine turned the Republic into the Galactic Empire after The Clone Wars ended. The actress responded:
I think so. I think she has been a woman who really believes in diplomacy, really believes in the power of a democratic chamber, for everyone to have a voice. I believe, with the encroachment of Empire and Palpatine, she has believed that she could still affect change from within. That she could make a difference, that chambers of parliament, for want of a better word, can breed allies, and can create effective opposition, diplomatically. I think when we meet her in Andor, she's at the end of that line.
During Andor, Mon Mothma is still carrying out her senatorial duties in the Empire while secret aiding resistance efforts against the Empire. As Genevieve O'Reilly noted, at this stage of her life, Mon is at the end of her rope with trying to bring ensure democracy can survive within the Empire through legitimate methods. Unfortunately, things are pretty bleak in this portion of the Star Wars timeline, and we know eventually Mon will leave behind her government work and become one of the Rebel Alliance’s most prominent figureheads, as seen in Rogue One, Rebels and Return of the Jedi. We also know that the Imperial Senate is dissolved by the time A New Hope unfolds.
We reunited with Mon Mothma in the Andor episode “Aldhani,” where she first met up with Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael on Coruscant to discreetly discuss her having trouble obtaining the money to bankroll his missions against the Empire. We also caught a snippet of Mon’s unhappy marriage with Alastair Mackenzie’s Perrin Fertha, who’s also a member of the Imperial Senate, but has no issue with socializing with high-ranking figures within the Empire outside of work. There are eight episodes left to go in Andor Season 1, and though Genevieve O’Reilly obviously didn’t drop any specific spoilers about what’s ahead for her character, she did tease that Mon "perhaps, might make compromising choices that we haven't seen before."
New episodes of Andor drop Wednesdays on Disney+, and it’s already been confirmed that the Star Wars show is getting a second season that will lead into Rogue One. Keep your eyes peeled for more major updates concerning the franchise set in a galaxy far, far away.
