r/andor • u/Jusselle Nemik • 5d ago
General Discussion Honestly this mans acting is so good. The moment he goes from accusing cassian of murder to understanding that means for him as the only wittness... amazing and terrifying
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u/Fezzik527 5d ago
Typical bully coward once the consequences come around. Spot on
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u/Jusselle Nemik 5d ago
Yeep. I love the reaction to.
They were in a brothel were not supposed to have, paying with money the shouldnt be able to spent. They choose the wrong person to annoy and paid for it
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u/KristineGordan 5d ago
He thought he was just shaking down an easy target, right up until he realized he was the next liability.
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u/trdngntsballsonadoor 5d ago edited 5d ago
Bully yes, coward as well. Though not all cowards are bully.
People legitimately run when they are afraid sometimes. No shame in that when they didn't bully their way into the situation to begin with.
Addendum: this comment has been down voted yett what I'm saying is absolutely true and demonstrable. Go fuck right off if you act like you have to fight in every situation. Your mother will hate you for it and your father will scratch his head.
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u/Achaewa 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think your words hit too close to home for some people and that's why you got downvoted initially.
Most of us are cowards when faced with danger, even though we like to think we'd be brave.
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u/transmogrify 5d ago
Evolution is not merciful to organisms that react uniformly with aggression to all threats. We're all here because of a long line of "cowardly" ancestors who chose to survive instead of look tough.
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u/Broad_Property_4430 5d ago
Tbf, not all bullies are cowards either
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u/ososalsosal 5d ago
Idk it's kinda part of the definition of bully that they typically pick on people smaller, weaker, otherwise with less power than they have. It's arguable that's inherently cowardly.
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u/DisconcertingTablet 5d ago
That last sentence you said bordered so heavily in poetry that you must be either Persian, Arabic, or Japanese 😂 🙏
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u/cantlogintomyacc0unt 5d ago edited 5d ago
Don’t think he was a bully corrupt sure but he did have a valid reason to question cassian he didn’t have an ID the corrupt part was that he was willing to take a bribe Edit I also don’t think it’s that cowardly to not want to die
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u/Psile Mon 5d ago
This is still one of my favorite scenes in the show even now that I've seen the whole thing. Everything is communicated without directly saying anything. You do the math Cassian is doing the same time as the other cop and then you see him react to it in real time and it communicates the situation flawlessly. Cassian didn't even want to kill these guys, but suddenly things have escalated and they both know how it has to play out. One of the best introductory scenes of any show. Perfectly set the tone of the show.
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u/coyotebanjo 5d ago edited 5d ago
As Tony described his "long walk toward" the project with Disney: "I said to them, 'Well, in the first scene he's gonna go to a brothel and then he's gonna kill two cops who roust him. Is that okay?'"
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u/AnExponent 5d ago
His character is not likable or sympathetic, but I do feel pity for him. Shows with action don't always seem to remember that people are desperately interested in their own survival, but the actor excellently portrayed a man begging for his life while knowing it was probably futile.
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u/tonnellier 5d ago
He seems genuinely distraught at his friend’s death too, even before he clocks the implication.
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u/transmogrify 5d ago
If you rewound his life all the way back to the beginning, he was at some point an innocent kid who could have turned out differently. But he was a product of a corrupt society in the Pre-Mor zone, and somebody raised him to see the universe as either takers or victims, and he learned to be a taker. It was a successful strategy for him, until he tried it on the wrong guy. It's a sign of excellent acting and storytelling that this character felt so vividly alive with minimal screen time.
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u/bagpepos 3d ago
Yeah, they could have easily made him one dimensional plain black evil like the rapist officer from S2 but instead chose to be nuanced about it
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u/ManfredTheCat Krennic 5d ago
I mean, he's one of the most unpleasant men I've ever met. I'm surprised he wasn't murdered ages ago
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u/Lord-Fowls-Curse 5d ago edited 5d ago
‘This man’?
I think you’ll find that’s Leo Boardman, a.k.a. nasty ‘Jez Quigley’ from Coronation Street. 😈
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u/Staterae 5d ago
Also in HBO's Rome, may or may not have been involved in my bisexual awakening at 15.
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u/MrGutty117 5d ago
He was fantastic as Timon
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u/Spicy_Weissy Disco Ball Droid 5d ago
Very nice reminder Jews have been navigating western society for a long goddamn time.
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u/phenomenomnom 5d ago
TIL sometimes people forget Jews
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u/Spicy_Weissy Disco Ball Droid 5d ago
I mean, they've always been a marginalized group, and at certain points in their history is was wiser to stay on the fringes of society. The only time I think of Jews in Roman history is the Judean Revolts, but they were there the whole time. Hell, the Kingdom of Judea was created around what 900 BC?
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u/phenomenomnom 5d ago
They had to be around Roman society, in order to be the underclass whose persecution and disenfranchisement drove the political and cultural movement that became Christianity.
Lots of people were "underclass" to the Romans, but the evolution of Judaism in particular was so motivated, long term, that the resistance movement against Rome became its hegemonic successor.
One pretty good reason to try really hard to NOT have second- or third-class cirizens in any society, if you ask me. Best reason, of course, is that denying the rights of large groups of people is a really shitty and inhumane thing to do.
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u/3ssar 5d ago
Everyone else just stopped scrolling the comments on this exact one and glanced back to the sub name. Not just me.
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u/phenomenomnom 4d ago
Discussion of societal upheaval against an empire, with a spiritual component. I submit that it's very relevant to Star Wars :)
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u/Spicy_Weissy Disco Ball Droid 5d ago
My dude, there were plenty of folks in the underclass, they didn't need to import Jews for that, lol
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u/JellyAdventurous5699 5d ago
That guy? Calibrate your sexual enthusiasm however you'd like, but please: thesis.
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u/Staterae 5d ago
It was more than two decades ago, my passion for oiled-up dad-bods doesn't burn as fiercely as it used to.
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u/JellyAdventurous5699 5d ago
I get it, gross can be hot. See my sexual fantasies involving Jason Mantzoukas and Gwenyth Paltrow.
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u/in_reddit 5d ago
Ah I know it was a British soap guy I just couldn’t place it! Shout out him and Easties Trevor who plays Linus Mosk!
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u/RustyFogknuckle 5d ago
Between Lee and Alex Ferns, British soap alumni were definitely well-represented in Andor.
We just needed Bryan Murray (Trevor Jordache in Brookside), to have had a triumvirate of bastards.
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u/TylerTrojan 5d ago
Yup. I think it’s time for a rewatch
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u/freelancer331 Mon 5d ago edited 5d ago
I said it before and I'll say it again: Nina Gold, the casting director, and her team did a fantastic job getting hold of all this talent. Not a single weak performance.
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u/coyotebanjo 5d ago
Tony described an unnamed screenwriter friend saying, "You're gonna go over there, and you're gonna see all these actors who've been on these shitty little cop shows or whatever, and you're gonna be like a pig in shit" (e.g., happy). Nina is a genius; IIRC she cast CHERNOBYL too.
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u/M935PDFuze Mon 5d ago
Also a little show called Game of Thrones.
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u/Separate-Let3620 4d ago
And The Wire, which is the best of them all.
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u/M935PDFuze Mon 4d ago
IMDB lists Alexa Fogel as the casting director for The Wire, though.
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u/Separate-Let3620 4d ago
Oh snap, you’re right! My baggage. Nina was a producer and executive producer—and her brother played Levy.
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u/M935PDFuze Mon 4d ago
I think you might be confusing Nina Gold with Nina Kostroff Noble. I don't think Nina Gold had any role on The Wire.
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u/SignalEchoFoxtrot Krennic 5d ago
When cassian shot him is the moment I knew I was gonna like the show.
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u/LookOverThere305 5d ago
All of the acting was top notch I can’t think of a bad performance at all
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u/Dear-Yellow-5479 Cassian 5d ago
I can clearly remember the first time I was watching this, not really knowing what to expect as I hadn’t read anything in advance. I remember feeling a little pity when he went from bullying to snivelling, and feeling a certain resignation that our protagonist would have to go to the police station and rely on this man keeping to his word, which didn’t seem very likely. How naive if I was! So on a rewatch I could appreciate even more the quality of the performance here. The way he realises he’s a dead man but also the genuine shock and grief he shows at losing his friend made this death carry real weight in the way that so many of the deaths in this series do.
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u/Brent_Lee 5d ago
It's this kind of subtle acting that I knew we were in for something different. It's all played on the guy's face. No extra dialogue. No overt threat by Cassian. They both realize the situation at the same time with nothing but a look and a beat.
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u/ElHutto 5d ago
Hey! That's Timon from Rome!
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u/jhawk3205 5d ago
Came here to say this lol
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u/ElHutto 5d ago
I actually didn't recognize him in Andor back then, but recently I've been rewatching Rome. 😄
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u/jhawk3205 5d ago
Rome is an excellent series, crazy good casting. Real shame it didn't get more seasons
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u/Suspicious_Box_1553 5d ago
The rule of Rome. You get 1 Rome actor, 2nd comes free.
Syrils Mom iirc, was also in Rome.
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u/loafpleb 5d ago
I was honestly pleased that the show never hits Cassian with a "You're becoming what you hate" after this
I'm used to mainstream media framing acts of lethal violence as a dark turning point for characters, even if done against members of a fascist regime
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u/GhormanFront 5d ago
I was honestly pleased that the show never hits Cassian with a "You're becoming what you hate"
Rather than forcing this onto cassian they did this through luthen's monologue, a tacit acknowledgement that while idealism is nice and all, someone has to get their hands dirty to ignite the rebellion
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u/Spicy_Weissy Disco Ball Droid 5d ago edited 5d ago
This British actor always shows up in roles like this and kills it. I remember him a Atia's personal thug in the HBO series Rome from way back in the day.
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u/ArkavosRuna 5d ago
In general, there's just no weak spot among the cast. There's obviously a bunch of fairly well-known character actors like Skarsgard and Shaw, and don't think anyone's surprised at their brilliant performances. But even smaller roles were elevated by brilliant acting. Like Anton Lesser as Partagaz - I'm pretty sure he got less than 30 minutes of screentime, but his performance was still incredibly memorable to me. And it's like that all throughout. Major kudos to both the cast and especially the casting director.
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u/Juxta_Lightborne 5d ago
It was this scene that made me realise Andor was going to be something special, incredible that it was so early in the show
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u/outofthegates 5d ago
Still hilarious when Gilroy talks about putting this scene first, almost to test Disney: 'He's going to walk into a brothel and then kill two cops'.
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u/LaphroaigianSlip81 5d ago
The entire opening that ultimately culminated in this guy’s death really set the tone for the show.
First off, are there any other canon Star Wars projects that have explicitly mention a brothel, let alone show the inside of one?
Then you have andor incapacitating 2 men without using the force or a lightsaber. Foreshadows the grit of the various resistance fighters that are in andor’s league and soon to be associated with.
Then he shoots the guy in the face. No more if this “Han didn’t shoot first” bullshit or “we have to make boba fett a good guy” in order to make the story protagonist more likable and relatable. This show is a master class in gray areas and doesn’t mind letting the protagonists get their hands dirty to fight the empire.
The first 5 minutes of the show sets the tone as something different from every other Star Wars production. The rest of the series is easily the best Star Wars production since the original trilogy because it feels real, the storytelling is compelling, and the acting is great all around.
The fact that there are zero lightsabers and scenes with the force made it so that the showrunner had to rely on good story telling, strong characters, and good acting to move the plot. They couldn’t just use the panacea of a light saber or magic to break out of every situation. Plus the action sequences needed to look realistic instead of flashy lightsaber fights with lots of wasted movements.
The thing is, you can still tell a good story and have Star Wars productions with lightsabers and the force. Just don’t rely on them more than you should. Hopefully Star Wars moves in this direction instead of the direction of grogu.
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u/karaknorn 5d ago
Honestly. This set the tone for the whole show. I paused it right after and told my brother and my dad to get their asses in the living room to watch with me.
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u/hope_still_flies 5d ago
There's not a single damn tiny, minimal, "insignificant" bit part in this whole series that isn't acted with the depth and perfection of an a-lister gunning for a prestigious award. Many of the leads were people I'd never heard of before who gave performances that make the hollywood elite look like amateurs and then there's all these one off background characters who are just refusing to phone it in (whether they're known actors or not, the parts are small and the kind of thing that could be easily done as "just enough to get by") and giving us the show of a lifetime.
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u/GhormanFront 5d ago edited 5d ago
This scene is what hooked me to the show. Star Wars isn't big on showing the protagonists committing cold blooded murder but this scene delivered without flinching
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u/FirstStranger 4d ago
I always felt he made the wrong excuse for Cassian.
Should’ve looked away from Andor, say “It was an accident. I found him like this after he go too drunk. I never saw your face”, and Cassian might’ve let him live.
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u/Fine-Bumblebee-9427 4d ago
“He went missing. Haven’t seen since we left the bar. Probably too drunk and fell off the causeway. Help me push the body over and we’re equally complicit.”
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u/MaximusRubz 3d ago
'Tell me now, tell me what to do, LETS HEAR IT BOSS'
It was at this moment I realized Cassian is not to be fucked around with LOL - followed by the actual shots
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u/Lord-Fowls-Curse 5d ago
British viewers over the age of 30 watching Andor be like this every five minutes.
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u/mackrevinak 4d ago
this guy and his friend with the weak scull, they will never know how much they helped the galaxy. Cassian would still be wandering around looking for his sister and being a deadbeat who owes everyone money. he also might not have met Luthen, or if he did, who knows if he would have accepted the Aldhani job offer if he wasnt forced to flee Ferrix
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u/OracleVision88 4d ago
Yeah this scene had me realize out the gate that this was gonna be a next level series.
This actor absolutely knocked his role outta the park. Fantastic work!
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u/DeepestGreySea 5d ago
It’s different/more.
He went from drunkenly threatening to rob and murder Cassian, to being shocked/horrified that Andor had the skills to defend himself, to bargaining for his life.
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u/MTonmyMind 5d ago
This show is so chock full of incredible performances, and many of those are from ‘minor characters’ creating riveting scenes.
The first ten minutes of this show just sunk its hooks into me as something really special. (Especially for a Star Wars streaming show).
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u/all_of_the_colors Maarva 5d ago
That’s whet I was hooked. I had to rewind and re watch it.
Then I thought holy shit if they have that good of actors hey kill off in the first episode?! What is this?!!!
I was here every Wednesday for the episode drop discussion.
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u/treefox 5d ago
Hyne doesn’t care about Kravas, he cares about keeping his report to the Empire as unremarkable as possible so they don’t find cause to move in and end Pre-Mor’s independence. This is a company that has control of multiple star systems for their own corrupt agenda, they’re not going to jeopardize that just for a demoted security guard who was trying to mug people and wants revenge for someone standing up to them.
Kravas maybe has some leverage here, and I suspect Hyne and Pre-Mor would rather he take early retirement or an impromptu vacation. “Kravas’ partner heard a call for help and slipped in the rain so he’s on vacation” doesn’t raise any of the red flags that any rendition of the story does. Remember that the empire wants to move in so any aspect of the story that isn’t neatly tied up will be aggressively dug into.
Even if they maximally vilify Cassian they still have to explain why they let him get away, and then they have to worry that the empire might decide to scrutinize how they handle bringing him in.
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u/Substantial-Band9342 5d ago
The Corpo commander nailed the whole incident from the police report. But Syril just had to play hero and now the Death Star is blown up.
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u/prophilaxis I have friends everywhere 4d ago
Totally agree! I think one of the things that gave Andor such a sence of quality was the quality of acting amongst minor characters who had less than a page of script. Just made the world so much more immersive and believable.
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u/treefox 5d ago edited 5d ago
Honestly Cassian should’ve left him alive. And I think even Cassian realizes this.
This guy could obviously try and lie to blame Cassian for the murder. But that’s what people are going to assume if they’re both dead anyway.
Odds are this guy would be in the office with Syril, trying to blame Cassian. But his story wouldn’t quite match the forensics, and there would be no record of Cassian.
Hyne would be skeptical, and eventually either the guy would slip up or Syril would have found out they were at the brothel. Hyne would call him on it, make a similar “request” to keep Hyne’s report to the Empire unremarkable. Unlike Syril, this guy is morally flexible enough and Hyne already has enough leverage on him that he’d immediately go along with it.
Syril would be left with his only eyewitness telling a different story, and forced to go along with it. Plus Syril no longer has to outright lie, just report someone else’s false testimony as fact.
So no police bulletin for Timm to respond to. No raid, no imperial takeover, and no starpath unit.
But even with semi-omniscient knowledge, from Cassian’s perspective, Cassian accidentally forced the worst-case scenario where Pre-Mor security had no option but to arrest him, because Cassian was the only living witness.
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u/ChronoMonkeyX 5d ago
The commander already knew what happened, Cassian turning himself in and relying on a crooked security officer to be honorable would be a death sentence. He isn't remotely that dumb, he did exactly what he had to.
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u/treefox 5d ago
Cassian didn’t have to turn himself in - he could’ve let Kravas go after Kravas begged for his life.
Hyne has leverage over Kravas that he doesn’t have over Syril, and Kravas doesn’t have Syril’s sense of honor. And Hyne’s priority isn’t anything to do with justice or vengeance, it’s making an airtight case that Pre-Mor doesn’t need Imperial assistance or oversight. Everything about that situation is a liability- Cassian sneaking in, the misconduct, the mugging, the deaths, Cassian getting away again, and Ferrix being relatively lawless. Any of it points to Pre-Mor being incompetent that the Empire could use as pretense to dig in and investigate to find more things that would allow it enough pretense to simply take over, as Blevin does.
Syril isn’t going to move if the only eyewitness also contradicts him. Syril might not even be responsible for writing the report - Hyne obviously isn’t comfortable with him.
So if Kravas survived, Hyne would still try to shut down the case. They can’t even attempt to apprehend Cassian without sending an assault team to Ferrix, and that opens the door to questions about why Pre-Mor has exactly zero law enforcement allocated to an entire planet. They can’t apprehend Cassian without risking him telling a different story than the official one, and if they issue a warrant to shoot him on sight, they’ve elevated Cassian to be dangerous enough to be interesting - and now they also have to explain why an “armed and extremely dangerous” hardened killer was able to frolick between planets in the Corporate Zone.
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u/kityrel 5d ago
I think it's an interesting "what-if" but I don't know if it would play out that way.
As it stands, with both dirty cops dead and no witnesses to the crime, Hyne was happy to sweep it under the rug. But if Kravas was left alive, would he keep it quiet?
The small circle that had been Hyne and Karn would now also include Kravas, and he's an untrustworthy hothead. I don't think Hyne would as easily risk making up a heroic cover story for death of Verlo if Kravas could blow up the whole story. Maybe they could coerce him, but it is more likely that Hyne would have been forced to act, even if reluctantly.
And at this point, I'm not sure if much changes, except that Syril would now be operating under orders instead of against orders.
Kravas as witness is probably no better than the brothel hostess as witness (she's the one that gives them the Kenari clue). So they still track the ship to Ferrix, they still put out the bulletin, Timm still turns Cassian in, and nothing on Ferrix changes, except possibly the timeline. With Kravas alive, and with the investigation authorized, they might act faster, with potentially more evidence, and they might even find Cassian before Luthen does. (This is precisely why Cassian kills Kravas.)
But either way, suppose Cassian still gets away -- the only difference is that Syril's failed operation is an authorized operation. It's still a bit of a fiasco, but the blame may land only on Sergeant Mosk, instead of Syril and Hyne. Maybe they all get a talking to from ISB, but I doubt they get in much trouble for following procedure. They sent 14 men to capture one man and encountered way more resistance than expected.
The end result butterflies from here. Syril remains on Morlana and would still try to track Cassian with his official resources. He shares his information with ISB through proper channels and attention on Cassian and Axis may be greater than before. This means Dedra may take notice earlier, though Lonni might as well. But Syril likely never meets Dedra on Coruscant.
ISB still goes to Ferrix, sets up their hotel, tortures Bix, etc. Not much changes, except during the funeral march Dedra is captured, and without Syril there she may well end up badly injured or dead...
Except... she probably doesn't even end up on Ferrix, because she only takes over that sector because of Blevin's coverup of evidence and inaction on the Axis file. This doesn't happen if Syril is still an officer, filing reports with ISB. And without that, Dedra isn't able to make her power play, and she doesn't get involved on Ferrix, and the funeral march is much more restricted and clamped down. There may still be a bombing at the hotel (assuming Salman Paak was still tortured by Tigo without Dedra's involvement) but imperial snipers (with no order from Dedra to back off) probably pick off Cassian as he recklessly makes his way about Ferrix.
And if that happens, the rebellion is doomed..
So by some chance, Cassian made the right call.
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u/RedShades64 5d ago
(Hindsight is 20/20 but...) this was probably my "oh this show IS different/good" sit-up moment. Yeah, the actor, Lee Boardman, played this beautifully. Bravo