Alex Lawther, who played Karis Nemik in the first season of Andor (and currently stars in Alien: Earth), has shared with Polygon.com how shocked he was that fans have become fixated on his character’s manifesto, and how it has turned into a powerful capstone for the entire series.
“I had no idea,” Lawther tells Polygon.
He only found out long after filming season 1, when Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy let him know the speech would be reused as a coda for the series finale.
“He wrote this very beautiful email about the resonance of that particular piece of writing,” Lawther says.
When I ask what the email says, the actor quickly pulls it up on his computer and starts to read: “I’m sure you’re aware of how deeply our work together has landed — And I was like, Oh, actually, I’m not really that aware of those things.”
Before they recorded the original speech, Lawther said he bugged Gilroy incessantly to reveal the content of Nemik’s manifesto.
The writer declined until the very last minute, which Lawther admits in hindsight was probably for the best.
“I’m glad I didn’t have time to sit with it,” Lawther says. “I’m glad that we just did it off the cuff. When writing is good, it’s better not to spend too much time thinking about it. The writing does a lot of the work.”
The fact that those words came back in Andor’s final episode are a nice bonus for Lawther, who otherwise has nothing to do with the show’s second season.
“Because of Tony’s cleverness, I get to sort of live on in a way,” he says. “But I wish I hadn’t been killed by that trolley full of credits.”
Watch all episodes of Andor on Disney+ now.
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