Andy Serkis

Andy Serkis was born on April 20, 1964. He played Snoke in the Star Wars sequel trilogy films Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi using performance capture VFX. He thought the anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a great film, and he liked how it felt like real grit and sweat. Serkis was a huge fan of the film. Serkis later provided Snoke's voice in the film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker.

Tony Gilroy, the executive producer and writer of the Andor television series, talked to Serkis for a while and explained what he wanted to do with the character Kino Loy and a particular segment of the world. Gilroy tried to line Serkis up for the role, but he did not know if the actor would do it or not. His casting was not affected by his previous role as Snoke. Serkis' only problem was he thought his appearance would cause uproar and confusion for the audience, and they would believe there is a connection between Snoke and Loy. He thought the idea of Loy was interesting and intoxicating because he is at the opposite side of the spectrum as Snoke and shows the human perspective of someone coping with the Galactic Empire crushing their soul. One of the reasons Serkis was eager for the role was because he wanted to play a character opposite Diego Luna, the actor who played Cassian Andor. After getting through the quagmire around the Snoke theories, Serkis quickly committed to the role.

Serkis said he really fell in love with his character. After Serkis received the pitch from Gilroy and read the scripts for the three-episode arc, he created a backstory for Loy in which he had a family and was a factory worker, shop steward, and a foreman. He stood up for workers' rights, but he was seen as a troublemaker and unpatriotic in a way. After ending up in prison, he forgot about his cause and became a tough shell of his former self, only wanting to get through the day. Loy also wanted to get out and return to his family. Serkis wanted the backstory to show that the Empire knocked the integrity out of Loy. He believed that Loy was brainwashed by the prison system, but he still knew he was imprisoned unfairly. The actor equated the prison to places around the world where people are in servitude or forced labor to build something. He figured that Loy initially clashed with Cassian Andor because Andor's wildness and untamed quality juxtaposed his own tameness. Serkis was excited by Loy and Andor gradually becoming united in the show. He figured that Loy's initial toughness was intentionally established so that it could break down gradually as he finds himself.

Serkis was not self-conscious about sounding like Snoke. Serkis had big ideas on what he wanted to do with Loy in the series. In one of the rehearsals, Serkis tried his father's mild Middle Eastern accent, which he thought was grounded and worked well. It was decided that the accent would overcomplicate things and did not fit. Director Toby Haynes and the crew wanted every actor to use their own accent to provide realism, so the accent was dropped in favor of Serkis' own accent. Serkis also tried to find the correct kind of tonal quality that fit Loy's class level.

According to executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg, the scenes in the Narkina-5 prison were the last to be shot for Andor Season One. Serkis talked about the films The Shawshank Redemption and Cool Hand Luke on set, but the actors could not have any personal effects. The actors would walk on metal plates for weeks with bare feet, which drained their energy. Serkis said the set, costume design, and prison outfits worked on him psychologically and took away his sense of identity. He felt that the set design was phenomenal in the way that it make him feel like he was in a strange kind of experiment. There were many scenes where Serkis and other barefoot actors would spend hours waiting in long tubes in the prison. The tubes would get smelly and rank because the doors were sealed at the ends, so the actor viewed the experience like walking into a big test tube.

Serkis and the actors would have to stand because there was no room for private space, making him feel incarcerated. He found it incredible to intimately get to work with Diego Luna due to viewing him as a major talent and gifted actor and storyteller. Serkis enjoyed performing the "never more than twelve" line, viewing it as a beautifully written transitional moment for Loy. He believed that Loy had a difficult time giving the rousing speech in the episode "One Way Out" because he knew he could not swim away from the prison. Serkis thought that Loy had a wonderful arc, and he enjoyed going on a journey with his character. Serkis attended Celebration Europe in April, 2023.

• "Launch Pad" — Star Wars Insider 150
• Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – The Official Collector's Edition
• Andor — "Narkina 5"
• Andor — "Nobody's Listening!"
• Andor — "One Way Out"