Andor Boss Tony Gilroy Explains Why He Stopped Watching The Mandalorian

Tony Gilroy, the guy steering Andor, basically put himself on a Star Wars media diet while making the show — to the point where he bailed on The Mandalorian even though he liked it. Not because of beef, but because he did not want future timeline stuff messing with his head. Inside baseball? Absolutely. Also, it kind of makes sense.

Why Gilroy tapped out on The Mandalorian

In a Ringer-Verse interview from June that has started making the rounds again, Gilroy explained that he fenced off a tight creative zone — the five-year window before Rogue One that Andor covers — and anything outside it threw off his wavelength.

"I started watching Mandalorian in the beginning, but then I couldn't watch anymore, because, as cool as it was, I loved it, it made me – I lost my frequency."

He said it was disorienting to look backward or forward in the timeline during production and that knowing too much about what happens later wasn't helpful. So he siloed his era on purpose — part process, part defense mechanism.

This actually tracks with the timeline

The Mandalorian plays out years after Andor, so foreknowledge of that future could easily bleed into creative choices. Keeping the blinders on is a very screenwriter-y move, but it checks out.

The acclaim, the snubs, and the non-drama

Andor has ended up as the most critically acclaimed live-action Star Wars series so far, but it still whiffed on multiple acting Emmy nominations, which has been a sore spot for the team. Gilroy also pushed back on the internet's favorite pastime: forcing drama between Star Wars shows.

"It's driven us crazy on the show, every time people, the clickbait, trying to draw controversy between us and the other shows... By the same token, it would be very wrong to come in and try to slavishly reproduce [Andor]."

Translation: stop pitting the shows against each other, and also, please don't turn Andor into a template for everything. He added that Lucasfilm has some "really unusual" projects coming down the line, which sounds intriguing and slightly ominous in a good way.

What's next in the galaxy

• The Mandalorian & Grogu: Din and Grogu's first big-screen adventure is up next.
• Star Wars: Starfighter: The next theatrical film after that, directed by Shawn Levy, starring Ryan Gosling, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, and Amy Adams. It just started production in the UK.
• Ahsoka season 2: It's coming, but no release date yet.

So yes, Gilroy ducked out of Mando to keep Andor pure, Andor stayed its own thing, and the bigger Star Wars machine keeps rolling with some genuinely wild-sounding projects ahead.