Get ready for a new droid to roll into your heart when B2EMO appears in Andor. B2 is a tiny salvage assistant droid and will co-star alongside Diego Luna who plays titular hero Cassian Andor in the Disney Plus series.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Luna showered the droid with praise for its design and explains what it brings to the show.
“B2 is a fantastic friend. It’s like the perfect droid. I have to say, it’s a fantastic piece of design, first of all. The team behind it is amazing. He’s so expressive. With very little, he gives you so much.
“It was wonderful to work with him because he’s real. He’s there, and he interacts with you the way you’ll get to see him [on screen]. There’s nothing he couldn’t do that he will do in the series. It’s all mechanical.”
Andor is the prequel series set five years before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It will follow Cassian as he becomes radicalized by the fearsome force of the Empire, and grows from a thief to a rebel spy to help put an end to their regime. Cassian will have help along the way, and one of those characters is none other than B2.
Series creator Tony Gilroy clarified that he wanted B2 to be a loyal companion to the Andor family who’s been with them for years. The droid has a cubical shape and is a rusty red groundmech who inhabits the desert planet Ferrix. Said Gilroy, “I said, ‘Okay, I want to have a salvage droid, and I want to have a family dog.’ It’s an old dog. That’s where we started.”
If previous droids are any example of the reaction that B2 will get, he’s sure to be a worldwide hit. Everyone loves the iconic R2-D2 from the original Star Wars trilogy and BB-8 first stole people’s hearts in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. New characters like Grogu and BB-8 are also lucrative endeavors as their toy sales reached astronomical levels, and the same could happen to the new droid in the galaxy.
Luna worked with the droid K2-SO in Rogue One, but in the movie, Alan Tudyk performed the role. It was only later that Tudyk was digitally replaced with the actual droid. In Andor, Luna will be acting with B2 in real time.
“It was weird, to be honest, the first few days,” said Luna, “I was like, ‘Holy s—!’ Before, in Rogue One with K2, I was in front of a great actor. But here with B2, it was actually a piece of metal moving, but a metal that was as expressive as any actor I’ve worked with and as precise, too. That’s another thing that is not easy. The team making him move and talk is just the best of the best.”
The series premiere of Andor streams on Disney Plus on September 21 with the first three episodes.