Genevieve O'Reilly discusses the brutal moment between Mon Mothma and her daughter Leida in Andor Season 2 Episode 2

Andor Season 2 might have just revitalized the Star Wars franchise again, as the first three episodes of the season wowed not just the critics but also general audiences. Just like its acclaimed first season, the second season was praised for its nuanced writing, prestige awards-style writing, and political relevance.

But one of the best scenes from the three episodes of Andor Season 2 is a small moment shared between Genevieve O'Reilly's Mon Mothma and her on-screen daughter Leida, played by actress Bronte Carmichael. In that scene, the usually poised and composed Mon Mothma makes herself vulnerable by sharing her experience on her wedding day.

It begins with Mon Mothma revealing that she was angry with her mother for being drunk at her wedding. But at this moment, Mothma realizes why her mother was drunk, and she tries to assure Leida that it is okay if she wants to cancel this wedding, saying:

"We can walk out there right now, tell them all to have a lovely afternoon, but it’s not yet time for a marriage."

To this, Ledia retorts:

"I wish you were drunk."

This hurts Mon Mothma, and things are going to go even worse for her in this and the next Andor Season 2 episode. This was a scene that showrunner Tony Gilroy spoke about this specific scene in an Entertainment Weekly interview on April 23, 2025:

“The wedding is just a disaster for her,” Gilroy says. “I mean, she tries to tell her daughter that she doesn't have to go through with this, and you see what happens there. That's a kick in the face."

Gilroy is not the only one who had something to say about the same scene. Genevieve O'Reilly also went into this scene during a Yahoo Canada interview published on April 24, 2025.

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Andor Season 2 Mon Mothma actress addresses that painful episode 2 moment:

As stated earlier, Genevieve O'Reilly, who has been playing Mon Mothma in the Star Wars franchise for twenty years as of 2025, was interviewed by Yahoo Canada. In that interview, the actress revealed the collaborative spirit with Andor Season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy, saying:

"I remember speaking to Tony about that actually and saying, I believe she'd give her an out, ... and I could have never imagined that it would have been as potent as he wrote it. Just at that threshold that she's just about to step over and get married, and Mon offers her an out, and Mon brings her mother and her history into the room."

The actress went on to say:

"So within the dialogue you have three generations of women, and it's such a clear moment for me about what Mon has willfully stepped away from, and she's offering her daughter a chance not to have to do it. And then the dynamic, the power dynamic, just shifts, and that young woman just takes that agency of her own and steps up against her mother."

"She's pretty brutal. ... And then you could feel that influenced, well for me anyway, the rest of the wedding. Because then later on, you have Mon drinking and then you realize what her mother was like. It's this really interconnected, intergenerational story."

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Things don't look good for Mon Mothma in the rest of Andor Season 2 either:

The first three episodes of Andor Season 2 slowly tighten on Mothma, and it won't be loosened in the next few episodes. The second season is slowly building towards a major event in the Star Wars franchise's history, the Ghorman Massacre. It was the event that prompted Mon Mothma to publicly join the rebellion and resign as a senator.

This was teased by Andor Season 2 showrunner Tony Gilroy himself in a March 10, 2025, interview with Entertainment Weekly:

"Canonically, there's the moment where she leaves the Senate, and that's in our timeline. So we're definitely dealing with that, but I would say, of all the characters in the show, of all the hellacious things that people go through, and all of the difficulties and hardships, I don't think anybody has a harder road than she does. Because she has to do everything that everybody else does with all the tension, fear, and anxiety and she has to do it in public."

"She has nowhere to hide, and this season just ramps that up to an almost unbearable point. What Genevieve is going to do in this second season — we realized in the first season what a brilliant actress she was and that we hadn't found the limits of what she could do. We still haven't found them. But he opportunity to write for her and write her story large was very important to me in the second season."

Based on what he said, Mon Mothma's dance scene in the closing moments of episode 3 is her only stress-relieving moment in Andor Season 2.

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Watch this Andor Season 2 episode on Disney+.