It has been 20 years since several scenes were tossed on the cutting room floor of Revenge of the Sith. Two of those scenes would have introduced the Star Wars community to the origin of the original trilogy character Mon Mothma.
In the scenes, she was portrayed by Australian Irish actress Genevieve O'Reilly. Many actors have been devastated by being left out of a cut of such a popular franchise. Since then, O'Reilly has brought the character to life in a movie, live action series, in animation, and now in her iconic role in both seasons of Andor.
The 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was her first chance to have Mon Motha return in canon before she would voice the character on Star Wars Rebels. Now, she has risen to new heights on Andor and Ahsoka, portraying the character in such a strong, crowd-pleasing yet painful way. Due to O'Reilly's portrayal, any time anyone views Return of the Jedi, they can understand that her scene during the Rebel briefing means even more now.
In particular with Andor, she has shown where the character came from and how she rose from a member of the Imperial Senate to a dynamic leader of the Rebel Alliance.
O'Reilly believes that her most recent scene, where she gave a passionate speech calling out Emperor Palpatine by name in Andor, was 20 years in the making. Her character powerfully denounces the Emperor and speaks of the continued role of misinformation and the harm that it can cause in society.
"The opportunity to give that speech, as well as the lead up to it, was everything I could have hoped for," O'Reilly recently told Techradar.com. "I was so nervous that, because it's existed previously in canon, we might not get to visit it. But what showrunner Tony Gilroy did, which was so clever, is carve a space to allow us to see that moment."
Given the state of things in our world, it was an extremely timely speech in my opinion and a powerful one that should resonate with fans inside and outside of the franchise. O'Reilly should continue to have a voice and role in the franchise as she moves forward outside of this season of Andor.
Hopefully, she might appear in either the second season of Ahsoka or in the upcoming film The Mandalorian and Grogu, set to premiere in 2026. We'll just have to wait and see.