Forest Whitaker will apparently reprise his role of Saw Gerrera in Andor!

In an exciting bit of news, it seems that another cast member from Rogue One will be returning for the prequel series, Andor, which is currently filming.

That news comes courtesy of one of the newcomers to the show, Stellan Skarsgard, who appeared on a Sweedish radio station recently. Thanks to u/aprentize on the Star Wars Leaks subreddit, we learned that Skarsgard mentioned during the interview filming a scene with Forest Whitaker. A commenter on the thread adds that Skarsgard says he has about one scene per episode, most of which are with Diego Luna, but he has at least two good scenes with Whitaker.

This is the first we’re hearing about Whitaker appearing in the series, though it’s not too surprising. Andor is set prior to the events of Rogue One and is going to focus on Cassian Andor, but more generally the earlier days of the Rebel Alliance as the fledgling Rebellion fights against the Empire – and might use some darker methods to do so. As such, it makes sense that Saw Gerrera would show up, since he wound up breaking with the formal Alliance over his more radical methods.

This show might be set during a period where Gerrera is still working with Mon Mothma and the others, however, so it would be cool to further explore the dynamics between the characters and to see how Cassian is formed by it. We already knew that Mothma was going to show up, and it’s exciting to think that Gerrera will be too.

He first appeared in The Clone Wars, fighting against the Separatists on Onderon (being trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano), and then was brought to live-action for Rogue One. He has also appeared in Rebels, The Bad Batch, and Jedi: Fallen Order. He rarely has had major roles, but he’s become a major figure of sorts in recent Star Wars storytelling, appearing in a number of different shows and formats. Thus it’s not really a shock that he’ll also be in Andor, both because of Saw’s prominence in other storytelling but also because it fits in really well to the time period and subject of the show as well.

Andor is currently filming and the first season is set to release on Disney+ sometime in 2022!