Building a rebellion
Production designer Luke Hull takes DQ on a tour of his Emmy-winning work on two seasons of Star Wars series Andor, partnering with showrunner Tony Gilroy and the ambition to introduce new environments and aesthetics to the Star Wars universe.
Set in the world of Star Wars, Andor looks and feels like a Star Wars show yet jettisons the Force, Jedis and lightsabers in favour of political drama, intrigue and one man’s journey to become a rebel hero.
Produced by Lucasfilm, the series is set prior to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which itself is a prequel to the first ever Star Wars feature, 1977’s A New Hope. Exploring the Star Wars galaxy from a new perspective, it focuses on Cassian Andor’s journey to discover the difference he can make as a rebellion builds against the Empire, revealing how people and planets became involved in the famous saga.
The show debuted in 2022, before an eagerly awaited second and final season arrived on Disney+ earlier this year, continuing the story of Cassian’s journey from disinterested, cynical nobody into a rebel hero. Diego Luna takes the title role, alongside Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough, Kyle Soller and Fiona Shaw.
Creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy is an executive producer with Kathleen Kennedy, Sanne Wohlenberg, Luna and Michelle Rejwan.
Responsible for building the numerous worlds and environments in which the story plays out is production designer Luke Hull, previously a Bafta winner for his work on 2019 fact-based drama Chernobyl. His credits also include crime thriller Fortitude and period drama Howards End.
Following the launch on Andor S2, his work was again recognised, this time by the US Television Academy as he picked up the Emmy for outstanding production design for a narrative period or fantasy programme, specifically for episode eight, entitled Who Are You?.
Here, Casarotto Ramsay-repped Hull speak to DQ about his work across both seasons of Andor, his partnership with showrunner Gilroy, the numerous worlds he had to create on studio sound stages and the real locations that became part of the Star Wars universe.
How did you join the Andor team?
Essentially because of [executive producer] Sanne Wohlenberg. I had worked with Sanne on Chernobyl. Back in 2019, Sanne had started with Tony on what would become Andor and a meeting was set between myself and Tony. We just got into it over a video call and became really excited and that was pretty much it. We started making the show almost immediately after that.
Why did you want to work on the show?
I was dubious at first, before I met Tony. I figured Star Wars had an established aesthetic and fan base, and I had thought Lucasfilm might be very protective over it. However, Tony wanted to be free of that. He was into making a story about the birth of a rebellion, about revolution and its effects on characters and it felt like a great way to explore some really interesting concepts and make a grittier, more grown-up Star Wars story that could be told over a much longer timeline than a movie. Lucasfilm were very supportive. It took us a minute to get on our feet but we put some early work together and it became one of the most creative projects I have ever been involved with.
And what were your first thoughts when you read the scripts?
Well, that’s tricky. My first week on the show, if we are going back to season one, was in a writers’ room with Tony, his brother Dan Gilroy, Beau Willimon and our producer Sanne. It was pretty intense and I was just trying to keep up and take as much away as possible as they furiously outlined a shape for the show to write into. So I got designing and putting my team together off this one week at first, with almost daily conversations with Tony as he was writing and we were designing. That process pretty much continued for the next four years for both seasons.
We had a detailed outline though, which was pretty epic and it was clear very early on this was much bigger than anyone was thinking but there was so much detail, such interesting characters and you really felt like you needed to be on the ground moving around with them through the story. As finished scripts came through, they were, of course, excellent. We had incredible writers across the whole show.
How do you approach a new project, whether it’s Fortitude, Howards End or Chernobyl, and was Andor any different?
In its nuts and bolts, it is all the same. Essentially, I respond to the story. I don’t always have a script, but I have always had pretty good access to the writers, showrunners and directors to get going. I like a blanker page to start from anyway, and every project is the same in terms of process in that I am basically finding the look of it as we go, building it like a collage and then you start to form rules and know what is right and what does not work. I look for contrasts to define, in this case, different worlds, but ultimately I aim for an overall coherent aesthetic.
The rules help here, so when you reach a point of question you can go back to those key ideas and make sure it answers those. It sounds obvious but I design first with my team and then we work up concepts from those set designs usually into key frames to show the team what is based on moments in the script. On a show like Andor, I start working with VFX from day one as we nail down the wider world that will not be physically created and then on to all the other HoDs [heads of department].
The only difference with Andor was the sheer scale. My earlier projects had been ambitious for sure, but Andor was, as I say, epic, featuring so many new worlds for the Star Wars universe. Everything had to be designed and built, not just the sets but also most of the dressing and props, weapons and so forth. Rebecca Alleway was the set decorator on both seasons and she did an incredible job of designing so many dressing pieces for the sets.
The show is set in the Star Wars universe, but how did you want Andor to look in relation to the feature films and other series?
The trick with Andor was to not make Star Wars the first thought every time we designed something. For me, it was never about being anti-Star Wars, quite the opposite. It was a case of how can we expand on that universe to see new things within it? How can we make it feel like this really exists? And how can we move through it with our characters in a natural way, as if you were shooting a contemporary movie in New York? I wanted to honour the Star Wars aesthetic, to go back to the tactility of the original movies, but also modernise it and ground it and give it some grit.
A lot of this is in approach before even design choices or taste. I was quite keen up front that any new planet was not a desert. It was important to me to honour the principles of Star Wars planets being made up of reduced ingredients, but it is a big galaxy and what excited me more was to have a planet that felt like the Scottish Highlands, for example, than something that had been seen before.
The other thing worth highlighting here is that Tony was writing very real world set-ups, often people’s apartments, places of work, conference rooms and hotels, so not your usual Star Wars fare, and that was part of the challenge for me but also one of the things that made this project so interesting.
How did you work with showrunner Tony Gilroy?
He is very generous; we worked very closely. Often he would have scenes or outlines and I would be working on designs or ideas simultaneously and one would influence the other. It was a constant back and forth and, for me, a really rewarding way to work. He’s great at communicating and loves to have meetings with all HoDs involved so we all hear the same thing. There was a lot of trust coming off season one and so we kept that same workflow going.
What were the key sets you had to work on?
That is a very, very long list. On season one, if we reduce it to worlds, it was Ferrix, Coruscant, Al Dhani and Narkina Prison, with lots of bits in between. Everything had to be designed, from props to vehicles, to ships, sets and locations. I guess I am most proud of Ferrix in season one because I wanted it to feel like a living breathing town that you fall in love with and root for. I wanted it to have a really clear geography, because the scenes Tony writes all interweave. It was an enormous undertaking, especially during the pandemic, and we built a huge backlot set over in Marlow that allowed you to walk from the hotel to Marva’s house and up North Steps and down the main street, and within that it also had multiple interior sets.
And did this change when you returned for season two?
Oh yes! We barely return to anything we designed in season one; I think only about six sets. That’s what was so exciting about coming back for season two. We had Mina Rau, Ghorman, Chandrilla, Yavin, all new Coruscant sets and more to design. Ghorman in season two was the equivalent to our Ferrix in season one, where we wanted to flesh out a whole culture and city. We built the plaza and streets and many interior sets on order to piece that together.
After a hugely successful season one, what was the ambition for season two and how did this relate to production design?
I guess at the time of going into season two, we did not know it was going to be so successful. We were excited, we felt we had made a good show, so really it was building on that and maintaining the ambition and detail we had started in season one. I think the idea was to roam the galaxy more and feel the expansion of the rebellion, so the design had to exceed what we achieved previously. I wanted it to feel fresh and different.
What can you tell us about where the show was shot, and the set-up of the various builds?
Seasons one and two were based at Pinewood Studios with stages and backlots there, but on both we had to expand to other spaces to accommodate our needs. On season one, this was using some land in Marlow, which construction levelled and built the town of Ferrix on. When it came to season two, we spread to Longcross Studios to use their big stage, which led out on to the backlot yard, and that became our Yavin as well as their surrounding forests. We also used two more stages. In fact, we never had an inch of free stage space, so we were constantly turning around sets across the series.
We shoot in blocks with different filming crews on each and they often overlap, so you are frequently shooting two units simultaneously. We also had quite a few locations. Star Wars is hard to do on location, but I really enjoyed the work we did and I think it really helps to ground the show further.
Could you utilise any real locations for the show?
Yes. On season one we shot in Scotland and used Cruachan Dam for the Al Dhani scenes, amongst other sites, and for Coruscant we used The Barbican and Brunswick Centre in London for a more mid-level Coruscant look. On season two, we settled on Valencia to create a plaza between the Senate building and the Senate offices on Upper Coruscant, amongst other locations.
So many countries are full of fascinating architecture that could be suitable for a Star Wars show, but you always need to change or add or create something everywhere you go for it to work.
What were the biggest challenges you faced on either season and how did you overcome them?
Season one was during the pandemic, although that also bought us crucial time to work out the design of Ferrix. It was also just the speed of the schedule and the sheer amount of design and build. We had to be very organised, but I had a very large and outstanding team on both seasons, with an art department that was headed by supervisor Toby Britton and Rebecca Alleway as the set decorator running her excellent team. There were times it became very tight to achieve everything. I suppose going into season two, we had more prep, but we had even more to do than on season one, so again the challenge was volume and schedule and maintaining quality at the same time.
What are you working on next?
I can say I have just finished a project called Neuromancer, based on William Gibson’s 1984 novel. It will be a TV series on Apple, which will be released at some point in 2026.
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tagged in: Adria Arjona, Andor, Cassian Andor, Chernobyl, Denise Gough, Diego Luna, Disney, Fiona Shaw, Genevieve O’Reilly, Kathleen Kennedy, Kyle Soller, Lucasfilm, Luke Hull, Michelle Rejwan, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sanne Wohlenberg, Star Wars, Stellan Skarsgård, Tony Gilroy