Despite being full of aliens, bounty hunters, and droids, a galaxy far, far away hasn’t always been the most diverse of places. Neither the Star Wars series nor Star Wars movies have ever had any real LGBTQ+ representation (and no, we don’t count that lukewarm attempt in Rise of Skywalker, and neither should you).
Thankfully steps are being taken to make the Star Wars galaxy a more representative place. Most notably, the sci-fi series Andor has introduced Vel Sartha, a member of the nascent Rebellion who’s in a relationship with Cinta Kaz. However, when Variety spoke to the Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy about the decision to include the first gay couple in Star Wars history, he admitted his bosses were quite relaxed about the whole thing.
“Man, really, it was a gesture,” Gilroy explained. “There wasn’t any controversy at all. From the very beginning, no one ever said we couldn’t do it, and no one ever said, ‘Oh, God, please do it.’ Our whole attitude is it’s just another relationship.”
“I mean, it’s one of the least complicated relationships in the show if you consider Dedra and Cyril, or Cyril and Eedy, or Perrin and Mon Mothma, their marriage,” he continued. “We did not want it to be performative in any way. There are things we can’t do — I mean, we have standards and practices. We can’t have sex. There’s a level of violence that we can’t have. There’s limits to what we can do. We can’t do some things that we would want to do. But within that, we’re cool.”
When pushed on the couple’s inclusion, Gilroy admitted that he didn’t realise he was being particularly radical. “In the blur of the whole thing, it just was like, Oh, this is really cool,” Gilroy explained. “I was a little bit naive about that.”
If you love Andor’s struggle against the Galactic Empire and the evil Sith lord Emperor Palpatine check out our guide to the best Star Wars characters.