In a genre often defined by maximalism and explosions, Gilroy made a strong character piece with his “Bourne” films, almost completely flipping the script on the current genre trends at the time. “I had been trying to get people to make an acoustic action movie,” he explained, “because action movies had gotten so bombastic in the ’80s, they were just enormous. So, when ‘Bourne’ came along, we went way down to nothing.”
In “Andor,” Gilroy portrays Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) as a disillusioned man who’s swept away from his familiar life and is forever changed by the suffering and atrocities he witnesses on his path. Though its exploration of galactic politics doesn’t initially seem applicable to the “Bourne” films, there are a lot of thematic similarities. These are stories about men on the run, of government tyranny, and dire situations. As Gilroy explained:
“It was about making it real. Keeping someone you really understand and really care about in a place that you understand the geography of, with stakes, is much more involving than a guy on a train with 15 machine guns and a helicopter coming down … It’s one man’s odyssey through the center [of the story] and then all these peripheral characters surrounding him and spinning around. I mean, God, it’s looking to be entertaining. It’s heavy material, heavy things are happening, but it’s an adventure story, too.”
