- "Andor" star Adria Arjona said that she had to be persuaded by her mom to go to the screen test.
- She told Insider that the audition was during the COVID pandemic so she was unsure about safety.
"Andor" star Adria Arjona said that she was convinced to audition for the series after a phone call with her mother.
Arjona joins the "Star Wars" canon as a new character, Bix Caleen, who is close to the titular character (played by Diego Luna). In the first three episodes, which premiere Wednesday on Disney+, Bix assists Cassian Andor in escaping the authorities.
During an interview ahead of the series premiere, the rising star told Insider that she almost considered canceling her screen test for the show due to the pandemic.
"I was in Paris and it was peak pandemic and no one really knew what was going on," Arjona said. "And I called my mom who was in Puerto Rico and I was like, 'Mom, I don't know if to get on this train. There's this thing called COVID. I'm so unsure of what to do.'"
Arjona continued: "She, like a good Puerto Rican mom, never hangs up the phone on me. But she just told me: 'You're a swan. You could swim in the lake of shit and not get stained. Let the force be with you, my daughter,' and she hung up the phone on me. I was like, 'Okay, well, then I guess I'm going.'"
Arjona made the right decision because she got the role immediately after the audition.
"I did the first scene [from] the first episode that we have with Diego and then I did another scene on my own," Arjona said. "Then there was this dead silence for like 10 seconds and Tony [Gilroy, the showrunner] just looked at me and goes, 'Welcome to Star Wars.' I was so shook. This never happens in the room, especially not for 'Star Wars.'"
Arjona credited her good fortune to Tony Gilroy, the "Andor" showrunner, for knowing exactly what he was looking for.
The 30-year-old star continued: "It speaks more on how Tony just knows exactly what he wants and needs no one to guide him or tell him any different. He's like, 'This is it. You are Bix.' Then he sort of introduced me to everyone in the office going, 'This is Bix, this is Bix.' And I was like, 'Oh my God.' It was the craziest 10 minutes of my life."
"Andor" premieres Wednesday on Disney+.