INTERVIEW: Kyle Soller Explains a Bit of Syril’s Journey to the Empire in Disney+’s ‘Andor’

Disney+’s Andor is an exciting new addition into the world of Star Wars for multiple reasons. Not only is it the return of Diego Luna as Cassian Andor but, much like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story did in bringing us brand new characters, the series is doing the same. In the show, there is an Imperial officer by the name of Syril (played by Kyle Soller) and it is truly one of the most brilliant takes on an Imperial officer because he’s brash, fights with those beneath him, and is definitely leading the kind of team that embodies the, uh, less than great versions of the Empire. (Meaning these guys are akin to the Stormtroopers who ran into a door in the original trilogy.)

With Syril, we can see his frustration with who he is working with. The best way I can describe him without giving anything away is that he’s sassy. He’ll snap, he yells, and he’s not afraid to make it clear that he’s not happy. So I wanted to know how much of that comes from what was already created with the character in Tony Gilroy’s scripts and how much was Soller’s interpretation of the character.

“Tony Gilroy had just written a really wonderful, fully fleshed out, 3D character that was struggling to figure out who he was. As you say, the Rebellion is kind of at its genesis,” Soller said. “The Empire is established but really at the genesis of what we meet in Rogue One and then A New Hope. And all of these characters, but especially Syril, are just at the same point. Trying to figure out who they are and Syril rests in that real pre-adolescence, like ‘I’m kind of acting out, I have really high standards, I’ve got no sense of self-worth so I’m seeking it through a fascist structure of the Empire and controlling how I dress and being really disappointed with the lack of expertise around me.’ And I really just worked on creating that with Tony. Some of it was on the page and then we got into deeper chats about his upbringing, Tony thought it’d be a cool idea to introduce you to his mother and I was like ‘This is not Star Wars! This is amazing’ like when do you get to understand where an antagonist villain comes from and meet their parents?”

I hope we continue to see Syril lash out and provide that Empire officer flair from the first few episodes of the series that have been made available to the press so far, and it’s made all that much better by Soller’s performance. He understands how to make Syril work within a structure like the Empire, and it’s truly cool to see how he plays out in the grand scheme of Star Wars: Andor. Soller gave us some great insight into Syril that makes his performance that much richer!

You can see our full interview here:

Star Wars: Andor hits Disney+ on September 21st and it has been well worth the wait.

(image: Lucasfilm)