{"id":927219,"date":"2026-10-14T00:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T00:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927219\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T00:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T00:18:11","slug":"behemoth-wouldnt-have-been-made-without-andor-says-tony-gilroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927219\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Behemoth!’ Wouldn’t Have Been Made Without ‘Andor,’ Says Tony Gilroy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTony Gilroy<\/a> and Pedro Pascal<\/a> have hit the BFI London Film Festival<\/a>, and the director believes he wouldn\u2019t be here without the success of Andor.<\/p>\n

\n\tGilroy, of the Bourne franchise and Rogue One fame, was the creator, showrunner and executive producer on the Star Wars prequel\u2019s spinoff series from 2022 to 2025 at Disney+.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis latest feature film \u2014 the American\u2019s first in 14 years \u2014 stars Pascal as Alex Serian, a gifted cellist who returns to Los Angeles after 20 years away to care for his ill mother. He soon finds himself investigating the aftermath of his relationship with a violinist, played by Eva Victor, whom he dated 16 years prior. Olivia Wilde, Will Arnett, Hank Azaria and Alexa Swinton all co-star.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLook, I want to gamble,\u201d Gilroy said to The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet outside London\u2019s Royal Festival Hall Tuesday night. \u201cI want to keep pushing. I never want to do the same old thing. And we certainly didn\u2019t do the same old thing with Andor. And I was like, when you\u2019re winning, you press your bets. And so I want to do something out there. And I had this, and I knew it might work. I\u2019m going to keep gambling as long as they let me play. I\u2019m going to gamble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe success of the Emmy-winning Andor, widely considered the most creatively substantive of the recent projects churned out by LucasFilm, actually helped Gilroy make Behemoth!<\/a> He said an adult drama that might have otherwise been a hard sell. \u201cI\u2019ve been at Disney now for 10 years on three very eccentric projects, and we\u2019ve been gambling together. It\u2019s kind of odd. It\u2019s not the common perception, and your mileage may vary, but for me, they stretched a little bit to make this movie,\u201d he added about the Searchlight feature. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of a stretch that they made to make this, and I\u2019m sure it has a lot to do with Andor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuperstar Pascal did minimal press on Tuesday\u2019s carpet but was caught spotting a \u201cProtect the Dolls\u201d t-shirt, telling the wearer: \u201cProtect the dolls, always and forever.\u201d He was supported by his sister Lux, who made a surprise appearance for photos with Pascal.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the screening, he revealed the extensive prep that went into becoming a virtuoso cellist, which included learning how to play the cello. \u201cI would take it everywhere with me, on Tony\u2019s recommendation,\u201d said Pascal. \u201cEvery errand, to the gym, it just sort of lived with me. It was like putting myself into a relationship, and there was something kind of comforting about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat method was the entryway into \u201call of the difficulty of technically learning how to play the cello convincingly,\u201d explained the actor. \u201cBecause I knew that for Tony\u2019s movie to work, that needed to be achieved. A full stop, you know? And to go into that question mark was terrifying, but it was also incredibly, incredibly thrilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother Star Wars alum, Oscar Isaac, was set to take on the lead role of Gilroy\u2019s film, but he had to pull out. The filmmaker explained to THR that he went into the meeting with Pascal \u201cwith the full intention of blowing up the movie.\u201d But 10 minutes in, after Pascal went to the bathroom, Gilroy knew right away. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t really a meeting. It was kind of like a prenup. We just agreed all the things that we would have to do to make it work because he would have to pick up a cello the next day,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a long-term affair. It was a Hinge date.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a good few weeks on the festival circuit \u2014 Behemoth! premiered at the New York Film Festival just earlier this month \u2014 Gilroy is pleased to be in and amongst the pack. \u201cThe movies this year are fantastic. [\u2026] I remember when we started, one of the other filmmakers said to me, \u2018We\u2019re really lucky. This is really good. You want to be in a good year.\u2019 It seems like it\u2019s competitive or whatever, [it] doesn\u2019t really matter,\u201d Gilroy said. \u201cYou want to be in it. This is a very interesting year for movies.\u201d He spotlighted Nathan Fielder\u2019s Elizabeth Holmes doc You Can See Everything as a particular favorite.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 70th BFI London Film Festival<\/a> runs Oct. 7-18, and opened with the European premiere<\/a> of Andrew Scott\u2019s tearjerker Elsinore. Some of the glitziest galas so far include Ink<\/a>, Wild Horse Nine<\/a>, Artificial, Paper Tiger, Possible Love, Bunker and La Bola Negra. Check out THR\u2018s Screen Talks coverage from this year\u2019s London Film Festival and chats with Andrew Scott<\/a>, John Malkovich<\/a>, Javier Bardem<\/a>, Naomi Ackie<\/a>, Ava DuVernay<\/a>, Cynthia Erivo<\/a>, Sofia Coppola<\/a> and Danny Boyle<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Gilroy and Pedro Pascal have hit the BFI London Film Festival, and the director believes he wouldn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,82532,130166,484860,447,134,3389,372,53457,3586],"class_list":["post-927219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-behemoth","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2026","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-pedro-pascal","tag-tony-gilroy","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}