Mon Mothma actress Genevieve O’Reilly sat down with IGN at Star Wars Celebration 2023 to discuss not only her exciting appearance in the Ahsoka trailer, but also how her character has grown through hardships in Andor’s first season.
Starting off with Ahsoka, we catch a glimpse of Mon Mothma in a hologram as Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka talks about the whispers of the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Mon Mothma has been a part of Star Wars since Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and now she’ll get a chance to stand in the spotlight once more and O’Reilly couldn’t be happier.
“It was lovely,” O’Reilly said of her being in the Ahsoka trailer. “I’m very excited to play a little part in that world as well. And obviously, I’m a mad fan of Rosario [Dawson]. It’s wonderful that Disney is interested in this woman and that this woman has value across different stories and through different filmmakers. To work with Dave [Filoni] and John [Favreau] as well as being able to really get under this woman’s skin in Andor, I feel terribly fortunate.”
For those unfamiliar, Mon Mothma was one of the founders of the Rebel Alliance and was key in the battle against the Empire. In Andor, we get to see her struggling with being part of the Galactic Senate’s Loyalist faction during the final days of the Republic while also secretly helping fund the Rebel Alliance.
Spoilers for Andor: Season 1!
One of Mon Mothma’s biggest challenges in the first season of Andor was over the decision to introduce her daughter to the son of Davo Sculdun, a banker who could help her make a huge sum of disappearing credits to the Rebel Alliance seem totally normal to the Republic.
This doesn’t seem too awful on the surface, but Sculdin isn’t the most upstanding of citizens and this is putting Mon Mothma in the position of offering her daughter up against her will in order to help hopefully stop the rise of the Empire.
It’s a terrible situation, but O’Reilly appreciates that the team behind Andor was willing to go to these lengths to show the darker side our heroes must walk through to grow as characters and get to the ultimate goal of victory against evil.
“So there’s that scene where Luthen talks about sacrifice and that they’re not going to achieve anything without extraordinary sacrifice,” O’Reilly says. “I love the bravery of the writing that you would question Mon Mothma’s dedication to the rebellion through looking at a mother-daughter relationship.
“Also looking at the idea of she’s working not only within Empire, within the Imperial Senate, but clearly her home life is embedded in Empire too, and how complicated that is for the woman. Props to all the writers and Tony for going there with a female character like Mon Mothma.”
Mon Mothma will be seen in Ahsoka in August 2023 before appearing once again in Andor’s second season in August 2024.
For more, check out everything announced at Lucasfilm’s Studio Showcase, Andy Serkis’ comments on Kino Loy’s fate, and our review of Andor: Season 1.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
