Andor Gave Us One Of TV's Best Monologues

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:01]And what do you sacrifice?

[00:00:03]>> The best TV monologue in recent memory starts with 9 seconds of silence. And silences are as much a part of this speech as the words.

[00:00:11]>> Calm, kindness, kinship, love. If you stretch out the waveform of this 1 and a half minute monologue, you can see how Stellan Scarsgard weaves silence into the dialogue written by Boillean and Tony Gilroy. Taken together, it makes up about 35 or 40% of the speech's duration, but of course, the quantity isn't as important as the distribution. Scarsgard is using silence as a rhythmic tool, a way to clarify and emphasize. A monologue this rich is all about rhythm. Every line, almost every word holds intellectual and emotional weight. In order to make sure everything hits, Scarsgard controls the pace, the momentum, building his argument to a crescendo of one word.

[00:01:00]>> Everything.

[00:01:02]>> That's the short answer to Lonnie's question. The monologue proceeding is an elaboration of what that everything is.

[00:01:09]To provide a little context, Scarsgard is playing Luan Rail, leader of a covert network of rebels fighting the Galactic Empire. Lonnie is Luan's mole at the Imperial Intelligence Agency. After six long years undercover, Lonnie is exhausted and scared and wants to quit.

[00:01:26]But that would be a great loss to the rebellion. And Luan is here to persuade him to keep going. For the first time in their relationship, Luan is revealing his face to Lonnie, a risk, and more importantly, a sacrifice to achieve a greater goal. This monologue is of course about sacrifice, but it also is a sacrifice. A sacrifice of anonymity, protection, and a little bit of control.

[00:01:48]When Lonnie asks him that frustrated, impertinent question, you can see Luan in these 9 seconds of silence first absorbing that impertinence, somewhat offended, then realizing, as Willan says, that to keep Lonnie on side, he's going to have to give of himself. So, this is not a prepared speech. and Scarsgards using the silences to communicate that as well. You get the sense that Luans thought about this stuff but never really articulated it.

[00:02:15]And speaking a thought aloud, we all know this feeling gives it a reality it didn't have in your mind. You can see the weight of this reality literally weighing down Luan's shoulders.

[00:02:26]>> I've given up all chance at inner peace.

[00:02:28]I made my mind a sunless face.

[00:02:32]I share my dreams with ghosts.

[00:02:35]These final words echo into the silences and Willan has written these sentences so that they end with the most evocative imagery. Sunless space like the sunless space where Luan is confronting Lonnie.

[00:02:47]Level 331 by the looks of it which is deep in the bowels of Coruscant where the sun's light can't reach. Ghosts like the ghosts of Creger and his crew.

[00:02:56]Fellow rebels whose lives Luan is sacrificing to save Lani's position. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion.

[00:03:07]I'm damned for what I do.

[00:03:09]>> We can start to see Scarsgard increase the intensity here. There's fear in his eyes when he says the word damned, but the tone is accusatory directed at himself. This is a core, maybe the core question of this show. Do righteous ends sometimes require wicked means? And if they do, what happens to those who dirty their hands to achieve a greater good?

[00:03:32]What happens externally and internally?

[00:03:35]Luan can justify his actions, but that doesn't mean the world or his conscience will grant him absolution.

[00:03:42]>> My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my my eagerness to fight has set me on a path from which there's no escape. What's interesting here and very human is that right after Luin condemns himself, he walks it back by suggesting that his actions were predetermined by innate personality traits. Luan didn't choose a path. His anger, his ego, etc. set him on a path. In psychology, this is sometimes called characterological attribution. And even though it can still be a form of self-lame, it's also a way to shift blame away from personal agency, a way to avoid responsibility, the fact of the matter is that Luan always has a choice, just like Lonnie does. But the speech isn't just confession. It's a veiled piece of rhetoric, too. Luan wants to make Lonnie feel like he doesn't have a choice, that he's trapped. He lowers Lonnie's defenses by talking personally, then creates a mirror in which he encourages Lonnie to see himself. You can see the game Luan's playing in the times when he chooses to make eye contact.

[00:04:44]>> Set me on a path from which there's no escape. I yearn to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost. And by the time I look down, there's no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my What is my sacrifice?

[00:04:56]Like with the silences, Scarsgard weaves in and out of these looks, alternating between modes of confrontation and introspection. Here's the full monologue again. All the parts in green are moments when he looks directly at Lonnie. It's almost exactly a 50/50 split. This is the push and pull of Luan and Scarsgard's technique. When Luan looks away, it's as if he's looking into his own mind, accessing memory and imagination. This also lowers defenses, draws the listener in to share that memory and imagination. In this case, he combines that inward look with a dramatic pause, a silence, and we're right there with him, hanging on to his next word as he springs the trap of eye contact.

[00:05:37]>> I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. Now that he has us right where he wants us, Scarsgard turns up the intensity to its highest pitch. And his eye contact feels like a tractor beam, like heat vision, the perfect match to Willan's brilliant burning metaphors. And just when you think he's spinning out, he pulls it back on a dime, showing that he's in total control. He even cracks a ry smile when he asks Lonnie's question for a final time before a final silence. Now the ego that started this fight will never have a a mirror or an audience or or the light of gratitude.

[00:06:22]So what do I sacrifice?

[00:06:26]You know, I've watched about a million first reactions to this monologue on YouTube. And in so so many of them, when this final pause comes, the reactor speaks aloud the word that they know is coming. The word that all this was leading to. Luan and Scarsgard have carefully methodically led us to this point. And you can imagine Lonnie filling in that word too.

[00:06:49]>> Everything.

[00:06:52]>> Do I think that Stellin Scarsgard planned out all these specific moves in advance? No. For a master veteran actor like him, it's about understanding the meaning and intent of the speech and then tapping into the right rhythm.

[00:07:06]>> It's not about remembering the lies. is about getting onto the right track and keeping your balance on that track. You can in the first line you can be on the oh I'm on the wrong track and you can do it over and over again and then suddenly you're on the right track and it works.

[00:07:22]>> Yeah, I think it's safe to say that it works.

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