There has been speculation over the years regarding the infamous reshoots for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Andor's success has led fans to believe that almost everything good about the movie was Tony Gilroy's idea. In a conversation with The Playlist, Alan Tudyk, the actor behind Cassian's droid companion, K-2SO, opened up regarding the changes that were made during the Rogue One reshoots.
Tudyk is fresh off a Primetime Emmy Awards nomination for his voice acting as K-2SO in Andor Season 2. The actor revealed that Rogue One director Gareth Edwards had a "looser" style of direction, and he was given the freedom to ad-lib lines as he pleased, and many of them were kept in the movie. "They were open to it. But on “Andor,” it was a lot less — due to the writers’ strike. I started work when the strike began, so the script was more or less set, and you couldn’t really play with it too much on the day."
He also revealed that his role in Andor was initially intended to be a lot bigger before Tony Gilroy was brought in. He admits that "K-2SO had a bigger role in that. I would have had a bigger role overall. When it went away and then it changed, I was disappointed, but I can’t think it would have been better than “Andor."
Ultimately, he appreciates Rogue One and Andor and, "I love “Rogue One” for the freedom it gave me just to play, play, and play — and then “Andor” for letting me play a role in delivering this political thriller that feels so much about our time."
Tudyk confessed he never saw the original cut of Rogue One before the reshoots, so he doesn't know what the movie was like before changes were made. He says the script was constantly changing, which was "bizarre" but something that's common for big movies. He shared a story regarding a funny scene in the film where we saw K-2SO slap Cassian, leaving him with a cut on his lip.
He says Diego Luna had makeup done for a "busted lip" for a scene on Jedha. Luna was supposed to have been smacked by another guy, but that scene was cut, and Luna felt it was wrong to waste all the effort by the makeup artist. Tudyk reveals, "Diego didn’t want to waste the makeup; it took an hour and a half to put it on. He’s like, “Can we just use it? I don’t want to go back.”
This led to Tudyk and Luna deciding to add a moment where K-2 slaps Cassian, and Tudyk added the line, "Fresh one if you mouth off again", which made Diego laugh, so he had to cover his face. It's a great moment that came from actors being given the freedom to do what they saw best in that moment.
Regardless, Tudyk believes the reshoots were for the better. "Tony Gilroy’s rewrites made it more focused — trimming scenes, tightening scenes, and focusing the hero’s journey of it all", he says, but adds that "it was always the same in the big picture. We were always going to die, so it didn’t feel like a drastically different movie, but the changes gave each character their own hero moment."
Overall, Gilroy was tasked with tightening up the script, but the big picture was already there, and there were no drastic innovations on his part. This differs somewhat from Gilroy's description of the film before he was put in charge of cleaning it up. He recently described Rogue One as a "corpse" before the reshoots, which suggests it was a complete disaster.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is streaming on Disney+.