Spotlight: Showrunning the Resistance with ANDOR Creator Tony Gilroy

TONY GILROY is the creator of Lucasfilm’s critically-acclaimed series ANDOR, which premiered its second season on Disney+ in April 2025 and garnered 14 Emmy Award nominations including Gilroy’s two nominations in Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. The Peabody Award-winning first season premiered in 2022 and was nominated for eight Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series.

Gilroy made his feature film directorial debut with “Michael Clayton,” starring George Clooney, which earned seven Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Directors Guild® and Writers Guild® award nominations. He then followed with his second directorial effort based on his own screenplay: the thriller “Duplicity,” starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.

A veteran screenwriter, Gilroy worked on the first three Bourne films: “The Bourne Identity,” “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” He then co-wrote and directed the fourth installment of the series, “The Bourne Legacy.” Gilroy also co-wrote the screenplay for 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box-office. He brought a clear creative vision to the film and from that, “Andor” was born.

Gilroy’s additional writing credits include “Beirut” starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike; “State of Play,” starring Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck; Michael Bay’s blockbuster “Armageddon,” starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and Billy Bob Thornton; Michael Apted’s “Extreme Measures,” starring Gene Hackman, Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker; “Dolores Claiborne,” “The Devil’s Advocate,” and “Proof of Life” for director Taylor Hackford; and “The Cutting Edge,” starring D.B. Sweeney and Moira Kelly.

Raised in upstate New York, Gilroy is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and filmmaker Frank D. Gilroy. His brother Dan Gilroy is a screenwriter who co-wrote the “The Bourne Legacy,” and his brother John Gilroy is a film editor who also worked on “Michael Clayton,” “Duplicity” and “The Bourne Legacy.” The brothers reunited to work together on “Andor,” with Dan serving as writer of three episodes and John as editor and executive producer.

Soheil Rezayazdi is a Digital Course & Event Producer at the Sundance Institute, where he produces multi-session courses, master classes, filmmaker Q&As, and other digital programs for Sundance Collab. Prior to Sundance, Soheil served as the Nonfiction Programs Manager at the Gotham Film & Media Institute. He oversaw the Gotham’s core documentary programs: the Documentary Feature Lab, the Spotlight on Documentaries project market, and the Documentary Development Initiative in partnership with HBO Documentary Films. Soheil has worked with emerging filmmakers since 2015, when he began a seven-year tenure at the Columbia University MFA Film Program. At Columbia he managed the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF), the Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival, and the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series. 

Soheil is also a freelance writer on film and pop culture with articles in Indiewire, McSweeney’s, Vice, Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, Paper, Paste, and elsewhere. He has also served as an external reviewer for artist programs operated by Creative Capital, Kartemquin Pictures, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and the International Documentary Association. A native of Iran, he holds an MA in journalism and a BA in film studies from the University of Iowa.