Beau Willimon

Pack Beauregard Willimon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is one of the writers for Andor. He previously worked on House of Cards.

Biography[]

Beau Willimon was born in 1977.^[1] He was one of the writers for the Andor television series.^[3] He was excited to work with writer Tony Gilroy and be part of Andor and Star Wars. He was immediately drawn to the show's strong vision and good writing.^[1] In November, 2019,^[4] the first writers room session with Willimon, fellow writers Dan Gilroy and Tony Gilroy,^[3] executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg, and production designer Luke Hull^[4] only lasted five or six days.^[5] Tony Gilroy brought an 80-page show bible and explained his general approach for the whole show and what he wanted to do with the first season.^[1] According to Gilroy, Willimon's skill was plotting and using a whiteboard.^[5] Willimon questioned what they were trying to do thematically,^[1] and the writers always approached things from an emotional perspective.^[4] Willimon and the writers aimed to create a character-based story that felt true. He questioned how one becomes a rebel and what sacrifices they are willing to make.^[1]

The writers knew they were doing the prison^[3] on Narkina 5,^[6] and Gilroy was interested in doing a prison sequence that included Cassian Andor escaping.^[4] It took the writers a couple days to figure out a unique concept for a prison.^[3] The writers started with making the prison brightly lit and antiseptic so that it would be the opposite of a dark and gritty prison. They built from there to do something fresh. Willimon found the prison much more terrifying than one would expect. After deciding the prison would have an electrified factory floor where prisoners are building things,^[4] the writers realized the guards would need to wear rubber boots.^[3] When the writers developed the characters that appear in the prison, they knew they wanted someone at the center that would be the face of the prison from the perspective of the prisoners, and they would go from trying to finish their shift to being a rebel. They wanted to cast an actor they could have an emotional attachment to.^[4]

Gilroy wanted to bring Melshi back, but Willimon and the writers only wanted to do it if it was necessary, organic, and emotionally touching. Someone at the meeting suggesting having Melshi be in the prison. In an early iteration of the story, the prisoners would steal the boots to escape.^[3] Willimon said he does not remember if Loy's "I can't swim" line was discussed during the meeting or if it came during the outline and script phase, though he thinks they got to the line in the room. The writers made Loy unable to escape after leading a prison break because they wanted the most heartbreaking thing at the end of Loy's journey. From the beginning, Sanne Wohlenberg helped Willimon and the writers think about what could be practically achieved and made it so.^[4] Willimon and the writers wanted the prison episodes to make Andor feel the oppression of the Galactic Empire in a serious, sustained, and inescapable way. He viewed Andor as a recruiter for Kino Loy in a similar way to Luthen Rael.^[1]

At the meeting, Gilroy shared his extensive idea of what he wanted to do with Syril Karn. Willimon had a fun time discussing and writing about Karn because of his relationship with his mother,^[4] Eedy Karn.^[7] At the end of the meeting, Gilroy assigned episodes to writers.^[1] According to Gilroy, Willimon probably got the prison break arc because he had not worked on action before.^[5] Willimon was pleased that he got to work on the prison episodes.^[1] Willimon wrote the episodes "Narkina 5,"^[6] "Nobody's Listening!,"^[8] and "One Way Out."^[9] Willimon, Tony, and Dan brought in Tom Bissell to work as a writer for the second season. They all spent around seven days in the writer's room for the season.^[5]