Secrets of Gorman, Mina-Rau and More: Creating the Worlds of Andor, Season 2 (Part 1)
Feb 07, 2026Creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy, Emmy Award-winning production designer and executive producer Luke Hull, and Emmy Award-winning visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo at Industrial Light & Magic take us behind the scenes of the construction of Yavin 4, Gorman's massive set, the new farming planet Mina-Rau, the first appearance of Mon Mothma's homeworld, Chandrila, in a live-action movie, and more friend.
When the first season of Andora was released on Disney+ in the fall of 2022, the crew was already hard at work on the second. Production designer Luke Hull knew from the outset that season two would be another project requiring large sets, and his team allocated even more pre-production time than before. “It comes from the story, the characters, and what’s on the page,” he explains of his approach to the realistic design and construction of Andor, which earned Hull and team the award for Outstanding Set Design for a Historical or Fantasy Series (one hour or more) at the awards "Emmy"2025. “It's about finding a tone that suits the story we want to tell. [Creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy's] approach has always been that every three episodes is a movie. You're trying to achieve that cinematic look that 'Star Wars' has.”
“We covered a lot of ground in the first season,” notes Tony Gilroy. — We worked on Ferrix and Aldani, on Narkina 5 and on Coruscant.It seemed pretty big, but we're going to move on."
“Given all the success of the first season, there was obviously a desire to raise the bar for the second season,” adds Mohen Leo, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who received the award2025 Emmy®for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or Movie for a Series. "Many of the original Season 1 crew are back... Season 2 is definitely more ambitious in terms of showing more... unique locations [and] going to more places."
Andor's second season showcases a variety of locations using practical sets, props and extensive visual effects. We have already visited some places, but now they are fraught with new surprises; another, known only by name, is shown for the first time; and many others are completely new. Let's take a look at some of the locations and worlds featured in the series, including D'Qar, Gorman, Yavin 4, Chandrila and Mina-Rau.
Gorman was the largest set created from the actual filming of the second season in Andor
In a filming process that was dominated by reenactments and location shooting, Gorman became the largest purpose-built set of the second season, comparable in scale to Ferrix from the first season.“We decided to focus on creating a plaza in Gorman on the Pinewood set,” explains production designer Luke Hull, “which then grew into a plaza and a variety of options for streets and streets branching off from the streets. So the set quickly filled up.”
“Gorman is a really interesting challenge because it's a type of city that we haven't seen much of in Star Wars before,” says visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo. — Star Warsusually shows either small rural towns, or, if they are big cities, then they are futuristic metropolises. And Gorman is a big city, but it has so much history...rich traditions and culture that go back hundreds of years. He was influenced by places in Italy like Milan, Turin, this kind of thriving, proud textile culture.”
For Hull, working on Gorman in the second season was his most significant achievement. The central square in Palmo had to serve several functions, located in different places within one large set. “The plaza included interiors such as the Gorman Hotel lobby, café and IOC lobby,” Hull explains, “which were built as one unit so that the action could move freely between these spaces and give the audience a clear sense of geography.”
Leo adds: “Luke and his team have done a really great job infusing everything in Gorman with a European, rich, sophisticated aesthetic and contrasting it with the brutalist imperial style. The Empire is building a new brutalist headquarters building right next to the main square.So the set built in the backyard is this lush central area, and then in post-production we add digital processing to create the effect of a construction site looming over it.”
Other forms of digital art were incorporated very early in the process, as the art department and ILM team collaborated using virtual environments for shot planning. “In Season 2, we had more pre-visualization and we were able to work out and plan shots as a team in our set models, which really helped,” says Hull. “It was very helpful for the director and cinematographer to be able to take a computer model of the sets in their correct layout and plan the sequence with Mohen and TJ.”
To expand Gorman's chosen locations beyond the actual sets, the ILM crew filmed aerial footage on Italy's Lake Como, another location familiar to Star Wars fans as the beachfront residence on Naboo in the film Star Wars: Attack of the Clones(2002).
Staging a “terrifying event.”
The horrific massacre on Gorman is one of the emotional climaxes of this episodic arc. “Why the Gorman massacre? Why does this have to happen? - Gilroy comments. “Ultimately we are heading towards the Death Star... In the first season we see the kind of destruction of Kenari, the planet where Cassian is from... We see the Empire taking away The Aldhani are among the Aldhani... They don't understand what's happening to them... We see Ferrix being destroyed as he rises.We've seen three different imperial takeovers... I want to really explore what such an authoritarian power does. And I want to see a real takeover of some [politically] significant place. And so we made Gorman a very significant place. He produces. This is a very successful planet.”
Hull explains that the huge Pinewood Studios set “was conceived quite early on as a place where we would show the brutal suppression of Gorman protests by the Empire. It was intended to simultaneously feel like a central cultural center of the city, reflecting its history, and become an arena for the encirclement of the local population during the massacre.
According to Gilroy, the filming requirements for the Gorman massacre scene were "100% higher" than those for the climactic uprising on Ferrix in season one. Filming on the huge Pinewood Studios set took over a month, often in extremely cold temperatures. “It started with a lot of people having to defrost the floor,” says executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg, “because when we got there at 6:30 in the morning, it was a real ice skating rink.”
From 50 to 300 extras participated in large-scale filming, and the film crew worked from several cameras. “It was really about spreading them out across the script and using every minute of every day to create this very complex and technically challenging spectacle that is emotionally very important,” Wohlenberg notes. “I can’t say how many elements [were involved]. It's the national anthem written by [composer] Nick Britell, which he taught all our supporting cast to sing.There were KX locomotives involved, which presented a huge challenge for the stunts, and of course the special effects... We were very lucky to have such a smart and amazing team."
This is not just the creation of a world, but also the creation of a culture.
Gorman is rich not only in its historical architecture, but also in its legendary culture, based on the weaving of precious webs collected from the unique spiders of this planet. Gorman twill is considered the finest in the galaxy, and as Andor's creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy points out, even Emperor Palpatine's black tunic is made from this coveted material.
“We created a whole society of Gormans,” says Gilroy. “This is not just the construction of the physical part. It's about creating a culture... We've developed a whole aesthetic, a whole language, a cultural identity, a national anthem and a story... The Gormans are very decent people, their customers come all the time. Luten sends Cassian there because for Luten, he says, the idea of the Gormans - the comfortable, safe, rich Gormans - being radicalized is just... to him, heaven. That's all he wants."
According to Hull, these story elements laid the foundation for the final design of the Gormans' appearance. “Tony wanted their success in the galaxy to be based on the production of fine Gorman twill, woven from the spiders that live on this planet, and it all grew from there,” explains the production designer. “The aesthetic transformed into an elegant European atmosphere of the interwar period. The idea was to create a place that could actually exist in the galaxy, but still remain relevant to Star Wars. You can feel the history of the Gormans."
The Empire is increasing its presence on Gorman for reasons known only to a select few under the command of Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).In response to this, an underground resistance movement formed. For the production team, each scene represents an opportunity to immerse the narrative in rich context. For example, Vel and Cinta's meeting with the organizers of The Resistance takes place in the basement of the building where Twillery is produced.
“We decorated the table as if it were part of Gorman's silk production,” notes set designer Rebecca Alleway. “The items inside were taken from old equipment that was used to make twill. Apparently no such equipment existed and my brilliant purchasing team, Corina Floyd and Helen Player, sourced some amazing parts and tools. And Tim Wildgoose, my wonderful props director, put it all together... It was a fun set because even though you never saw the place as a twill factory, we had to show that they had taken it as their secret headquarters. We kind of created a whole backstory."
A hospital that combines several levels.
After Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) mortally wounds himself in his shop on Coruscant, he is taken to a high-altitude hospital, where href="https://www.starwars.com/databank/imperial-security-bureau">Imperial Security Bureauis trying to keep alive its valuable source of information - the Axis organization. However, Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) has a different plan.Disguised in a medical gown, Clea infiltrates the facility and helps Luthen complete his final mission - keeping the secrets of the nascent Rebellion safe.
Production designer Luke Hull describes the task of creating a large hospital on Coruscant as "a really big challenge." The design was originally inspired by the Lloyd's building in London's financial district, known for its distinctive, repeating layout with identical floors. “The original 'crazy' idea was to build a hospital on these empty floors of the Lloyd's building,” explains Hull, “which probably wouldn't have given us much flexibility. But it was a good starting point... You could see down to other levels and down into the city. The design of the hospital really started to have an impact on how this episode unfolded."
According to Hull, a large U-shaped set was built that could be rearranged to look like different floors. “We wanted to create this bright, clinical look where there’s nowhere to hide,” adds the production designer. Set decorator Rebecca Alleway looked at a variety of real-life analogues for inspiration, including "several Japanese hospitals for lighting, graphics and light boxes, which the graphic design team took even further," she says. “And then I was interested in diving into the strange machines of the 30s, 40s and 50s.”
Alleway describes Luten's hospital bed and life support system as "one of the highlights I worked on designing in season two." The final moment between Cleia and Luten also triggers one of the few flashbacks shown in episode ten, which was filmed on location in Spain.“We go from Luten in the hospital bed to young Kleia and their relationship and how it all started,” Alleway says. “I think it's fantastic and creates a sharp contrast. You have the color palette of the Valencia market, and the stark contrast with the color palette of the hospital."
“Rebecca is really talented and we work well together,” adds Hull. “I think we just built on the rules we started setting in season one and kept meeting to refine the set. The art and set design teams that worked on Andor were absolutely amazing. The production of props and action scenes was also on a completely different level.”
The second part of the article is available by link.